LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf .__:■;: Jii i 

n ,74- 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 

BY JOSEPH COOK, 



BIOLOGY. With Preludes on Current Events. Three Colored Illustrations. 

12ino. Sixteenth tliousand $1.50 

TRANSCENDENTALISM. With Preludes on Current Events. 12mo. Tenth 

thousand 1.50 

ORTHODOXY. With Preludes on Current Events. Seventh Thousand . . 1.50 
CONSCIENCE. With Preludes on Current Events. Fifth Thousand <. . 1.50 
HEREDITY. With Preludes on Current Events . ". . . . , . 1.50 

MARRIAGE. With Preludes on Current Events , .1.50 

LABOR. With Preludes on Current Events 1.50 

SOCIALISM. With Preludes on Current Events. ....... 1.50 

OCCIDENT. With Preludes on Current Events. (A new volume) .... 1.50 

ORIENT. With Preludes on Current Events. (In Fress) . . . . . . 1.50 



"I do not know of any work on Conscience in which the true theory of ethics is so 
clearly and forcibly presented, togetlier with the logical inferences from it'in snpport of tlie 
great trutlis of religion. The review of the whimsical and shallow speculations of Matthew- 
Arnold is especially able and satistactory." — Professor Francis Boiven, Harvard Univer- 
sity. 

'"These Lectures are crowded so full of knowledge, of thouglit. of argument, illumined 
with such passages of eloquence and power, spiced so frequently with deep-cutting tliough 
good-natured irony, that 1 could make no abstract from them without utterly mutilating 
them." — Rer. Dr. T/iomas Hilt, ex- Fi-esident of HnrvattLUtuvei-siti/, in Christian Register. 

"Joseph Cook is a phenomenon to be accounted for. No otiier Anjerican orator Jias 
done what he has done, or anv thing like it; and, prior to the experiment, no voice would 
have been bold enough to predict its success." —liev. Frofessor A. F. Feabody ofHarvand 
Universitij. 

" Mr. Cook is a specialist. His work, as it now stands, represents fairly the very latest 
and best researches." — George M. Beard, 31. D., of JS'ew York. 

"By far the most satisfactory of recent discussions in this field, both in method and 
execution."— Frofessor Borden P. Bowne of Boston University. 

"Mr. Cook is a great master of analysis. He shows singular justness of view in his 
manner ot treating the most ditficult and perplexing themes." — Princeton Review. 

"The I/ecturcs are remarkably eloquent, vigorous, and powerful." — .K. Payne Smith, 
Dean of Canterbury. 

"They are wonderful specimens of shrewd, clear, and vigorous thinking." — Rev. Dr. 
Angus, the College, Regent's Park. 

"These are very wonderful Lectures." — /?eu. C. H. Spurgeon. 

"Traversing a very wide field, cutting right across the territories of rival specialists, the 
work on Biology contains not one important scientific misstatement, either of fact or 
theory." — Bihliotheca Sacra. 

"Vigorous and suggestive. Interesting from the glimpses they give of the present phases 
of speculation in vHiat is emphatically the most thoughtful community in the United 
States." — London Spectator. 

" I admired the rhetorical power with which, before a large mixed audience, the speaker 
knew how to handle the difficult topic of biology, and to cause the teaching of German 
philosophers and theologians to be respected." — Professor Schoberlein, of Gottingen Uni- 
versity. 

"His object is the foundation of a new and true metaphysics resting on a biological basis, 
that is the proof of the truth of philosophical theism, and of the fundamental ideas of 
Christianity. Tliese intentions he carries out with a full, and occasionally witli a too full, 
application of his eminent oratorical talent, and with great sagacity and thorough 
knowledge of the leading works in physiology for the last thirty years." — Projessor Ulrici, 
University of Halle, Germany. 



HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Publishers. 



Boston Monda y Lectures. 



OCCIDENT, 



WITH PRELUDES ON CURRENT EVENTS. 



By JOSEPH COOK, 
ii 



/-; 



The sky is roof of but one family. 
I will be citizen of the whole earth. 

The Rhine from the Odenwald. 




BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

New York ; 11 East Seventeenth Street. 

(Cj[)e 0itJErsitie Press, CambriDge. 
1884. 






Copyright, 1884, 
By JOSEPH COOK. 

A U rights reserved. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027352 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Llectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company. 



To 
THE MANY SCORES OF FRIENDS 

IN 

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, GERMANY, INDIA, CHINA, 
JAPAN, AND AUSTRALIA, 

WHOSE KIXDNESS TO ME AND MINE, ON A TOUR OF THE WOELD, 

HAS ENCIRCLED THE EARTH FOR US WITH 

A CHAIN OF MEMORIES, 

EVERY LINK IN WEIICII IS GOLDEN, 

Cfjis iSook 

IS RESPECTFULLY, GRATEFULLY, AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED, 

IN ASPIRATION FOR THE SUCCESS OF 

INTERNATIONAL REFORM, 

AND THE GROWTH OF THE SPIRIT OF A 

COSMOPOLITAN CITIZENSHIP. 



The wind blows east, the wind blows west ; 
The world, they say, is worst to the best. 

Thomas Carlyle. 

Afloating, afloating 

Across the sleeping sea; 

All night I heard a singing-bird, 

Upon the top-mast tree. 

" Oh came you from the isles of Greece 
Or from the banks of Seine ; 
Or off some tree in forests free 
Which fringe the Western main ? " 

" I came not off the Old World, 
Nor yet from off the New ; 
But I am one of the birds of God 
Which sing the whole night through." 

" Oh sing and wake the dawning. 
Oh Avhistle for the wind ; 
The night is long, the current strong, 
My boat it lags behind." 

"The current sweeps the Old World; 
The current s^veeps the New; 
- The wind will blow, the dawn will glow 
Ere thou hast sailed them through." 

Charles Kingsley. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The object of the Boston Mouday Lectures is to present 
the results of the freshest German, English, and American 
scholarship on the more important and difficult topics cou- 
eerninoj the relations of Relimon and Science. 

They were begun in the Meionaon in 1875. The au- 
diences gathered at noon on Mondays were of such size 
as to need to be transferred to Park Street Church in Octo- 
ber, 1876, and thence to Tremont Temple, which was often 
more than full during the winter of 1876-77 and in that of 
1877-78. The very capacious auditorium of Tremont Tem- 
ple was destroyed by fire in August, 1879 ; and in Novem- 
ber of that year the lectures were transferred to the Old 
South Meeting-House, the most interesting of the historic 
edifices of New England. 

The audiences have always contained large numbers of 
ministers, teachers, and other educat^men. 

The thirty-five lectures given in 1876-77 were reported 
in the Boston Daily "Advertiser," by Mr. J. E. Bacon, 
stenographer, and most of them were republished in full in 
New York and London. They are contained in the first, 
second, and third volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, 
entitled " Biology," " Transcendentalism," and " Ortho- 
doxy." 

The thirty lectures given in 1877—78 were reported by 
Mr. Bacon for the " Advertiser," and republished in full iu 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

New York and London. They are contained in the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, en- 
titled " Conscience," " Heredity," and " Marriage." 

The twenty lectures given in 1878-79 were reported by 
Mr. Bacon for the "Advertiser," and republished in full 
in New York and London. They are contained in the sev- 
enth and eighth volumes of Boston Monday Lectures, en- 
titled " Labor "' and " Socialism." 

In 1880, 1881, and 1882, Mr. Cook made a tour of the 
world, as traveler and lecturer. 

During his absence there was given in Tremont Temple, 
in the Boston Monday Lectureship, a course of ten lectures, 
which are now included in the volume entitled " Christ and 
Modern Thought." The lecturers were : — 

President James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., of Princeton 
College. 

Ex-President Mark Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., of Wil- 
liams College. 

President E. G. Robinson, D. D., LL. D., of Brown 
University. 

Rev. S. W. Dike. 

Rev. Thomas Guard, D. D. 

Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, D. D., LL. D. 

Prof. George R. Crooks, D. D., LL. D., of Drew 
Theological Seminary. 

Rev. G. B. Thomas, D. D. 

Rev. John Cotton Smith, D. D. 

Chancellor Howard Crosby, D. D., LL. D. 

In the volume made up of the lectures of these gentle- 
men, there was published a preliminary lecture on " The 
Methods of Meeting Modern Unbelief," given by Mr. Cook 
in London. In the English edition there was included 
"Wendell Phillips' Reply to Chancellor Crosby's View of the 
Temperance Question. 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

After returning from his tour of the world, Mr. Cook 
gave in the Boston Monday Lectureship, in Tremont Tem- 
ple, the twelve lectures which are included in the ninth and 
tenth volumes of the Boston Monday Lectures, entitled 
" Occident " and " Orient." They were reported steno- 
graphically by Mr. Bacon, and republished in full in New 
York, Chicago, Loudon, and other cities. 

The following is the Report of the Boston Monday 
Lectureship for 1883 : — 

1. The published reports of the Boston Monday Lectures 
are now estimated to reach in America, England, Scotland, 
India, and Australia more than a million readers weekly. 

2. The audiences in Boston for the season of 1883 ; — the 
seventh of the Lectureship — have been of unprecedented 
quantity and quality, often exceeding the seating capacity 
of Tremont Temple. 

3. The Monday Lectures given in past years now make 
eight volumes in their American form, and of these several 
have reached a fifteenth or sixteenth edition. There are in 
England thirteen different forms of these volumes as repub- 
lished in London. It is affirmed by their numerous publish- 
ers that no volumes on similar themes have ever been circu- 
lated more widely than these through England, Scotland, 
India, and Australia. 

4. During Mr. Cook's recent absence from Boston, he 
made a tour of the world, the journey extending through 
two years and seventy-seven days. He lectured oftener, on 
the average, than every other working-day, while on the 
land. In all the great cities visited there were immense 
audiences. The principal subjects of the lectures were the 
chief questions now in discussion between Christianity on 
the one hand, and philosophy and physical science on the 
other. It is believed that topics equally difficult and seri- 
ous were never before carried through a tour of similar ex- 
tent and success. 



X INTEODUGTION. 

There were 135 public appearances in the United King- 
dom, 42 in India and Ceylon, 5 in China, 12 in Japan, and 
50 in Australia. 

5. Among the distinguished gentlemen who have given 
written permission for the use of their names on the Honor- 
ary Committee of the Boston Monday Lectureship, are : — 

Rev. James McCosh, D. D., President of Princeton 
College ; Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D., Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Rev. 
RoswELL D. Hitchcock, D. D., New York city ; Rev. 
William M. Taylor, D. D., New York city ; Prof. Ed- 
wards A. Park, D. D., Andover, Mass. ; Prof. J. P. Gul- 
liver, Andover, Mass. ; Bishop F. D. Huntington, Syra- 
cuse, N. Y. ; Rev. T. M. Post, D. D., St. Louis ; Prof. S. 
L CuRTiss, Chicago Theological Seminary ; President 
George F. Magoun, Iowa College ; Bishop Benjamin N. 
Paddock ; Hon, A. H. Rice, Ex-Governor of Massachu- 
setts ; Hon William Claflin, Ex-Governor of Massachu- 
setts ; Rev. William M. Baker, D. D., Boston ; Prof. 
Borden P. Bowne, Boston University ; Samuel John- 
son, Boston ; Wendell Phillips, Boston ; Rev. N. G. 
Clark, D. D., Boston ; Rev. Otis Gibson, San Francisco ; 
Gen. John Eaton, Department of the Interior, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 

6. Devoutly grateful to Providence for the opportuni- 
ties of usefulness open before the Boston Monday Lecture- 
ship, the Committee in charge of it recommends : — 

(1.) The formation of a Boston Monday Lectureship As- 
sociation on the following plan : — 

Membership of the association shall be open to those who 
subscribe $1 annually to its support. Each dollar sub- 
scribed shall entitle the subscriber to one seat in the annual 
course of lectures, and to one vote in the annual election of 
ofRcers. Every five dollars subscribed by a single individ- 
ual shall give the right of selecting reserved seats in the 
order of the subscriptions. 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

The general public is to be admitted to any empty spaces 
left in the seats ; and, if necessary, contributions may be 
taken. 

(2.) The continuance of the lectures under the same gen- 
eral plan as in the past. 

(3.) The raising of at least $2,500 for each season to 
cover expenses. 

Signed (for the Committee). 

A. J. Gordon, President. 

M. R. Deming, Secretary and Treasurer. 

G. A. FoxCROFT, Business Manager. 

In the following volume, which gives only a subordinate 
place to merely personal experiences in travel, some of the 
salient points are : — 

1. A plan of Study during a Tour of the World. 

2. An estimate of the Present Forces of Agnosticism and 
Materialism and of Christian Theism in England. 

3. A study of the New Criticism of the Old Testament, 
with a notice of the views of Professor Delitzsch on that 
topic. 

4. An examination of the Position of the German State 
Church and of the German Universities, especially with ref- 
erence to the downfall of the Mythical Theory and the De- 
cline of Rationalism. 

5. A review of recent German discussions for and against 
the claims of Spiritualism. 

6. A lecture in London on the Relations of the Temper- 
ance Reform to Civil Liberty, notices of the contrasts be- 
tween American and Foreign Temperance Creeds. 

7. A study of Christian Missions in their world-wide 
Relations to Current Events. 

8. A defence of the principles of Civil Service Reform. 

9. A reply to the defenders of the theory of Probation 
after Death. 



Xil INTEODTJCTION. 

10. A study of Advanced Thought in Italy and Greece, 
with a lecture on a Night on the Acropolis ; or, Art and 
History at Athens. 

As the matter in the Preludes refers to current reform, 
the expressions of the audiences, whether favorable or un- 
favorable, are retained as recorded by the stenographer ; 
but these have been omitted in the Lectures, as the latter 
have been considerably revised and enlarged since delivery. 



OONTEIN^TS. 



LECTURE I. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 

PAGE 

No Foreign Lauds in our Day 21 

The Unity of Modern Nations 21 

A Cosmopolitan Faith 22 

Leaving New York Harbor 24 

Minor Beauties of the Ocean 25 

Midnight at the Centre of the Atlantic 26 

The Lost Atlantis 27 

Plato and the Atlantidean Theory 29 

Lectures in England and Scotland 31 

Lectures in Ireland and Wales . . . . . . 31 

Methods of Study in Travel 32 

Fifty Questions concerning Each Nation 33 

British Advanced Thought 34 

Agnosticism in England 36, 39 

Herbert Spencer's Critics 37 

The Cockney Materialistic School 37 

Lionel Beale and Clerk Maxwell 38, 40 

Carlyle's Natural Supernaturalisra 39, 42 

Christian Theism 41 

English and Scottish Preaching 45, 47 

Mrs. Browning and Tennyson 48 



LECTURE IL 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 

Leading Minds in German Universities 72 

Torpor of German State Churches 73 

Prospects of Separation of Church and State . . . 74, 77 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Downfall of Strauss' Mythical Theory 78 

Concessions of Baur, Strauss, and Renan 78 

St. Paul's Four Undisputed Epistles 79 

New Triumphs of Christian Scholarship 84 

Leibnitz, Kant, and Lotze 84 



LECTURE III. 

DELITZSCH ON THE NEW CRITICISM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

Three Schools of Old Testament Criticism 99 

Wellhausen's and Kuenen's Opponents 99 

Eight Theses by Professor Delitzsch ...... 102 

Four Authors of the Pentateuch ] 06 

Failures of Anti-Supernaturalistic Criticism . . . .111 

Progress of Assyriology and Egyptology , . '. .114 

LECTURE IV. 

PKOFESSOR ZOLLNER's VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

ZoUner a Biblical Demonologist . 131 

Partisan Opposition to Zollner at Leipzig . . . .132 

Personal Traits of Zollner 133 

German Works on Spiritualism . . . . . .134 

Zollner on American Spiritualism 135 

His Belief in the Agency of Evil Spirits . . . . . 141 

His Celebrated Experiments 141 

His Views as to the Christian Miracles 143 

Summary of his New Philosophy 143 

Final Interview with Zollner 145 



LECTURE V. 

OPPONENTS OF PROFESSOR ZOLLNER's VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

Untrustworthiness of So-Called Spiritistic Communications . 162 

The Author an Anti- Spiritualist 163 

The Biblical Doctrine ns to Evil Spirits 163 

Evasion of this Topic Unscientific 164 

Professor Wundt as ZoUner's Opponent . . . . .164 
German Literature against Spiritualism . . . . .164 
Bellachini, the Court Conjurer . . . . . . .165 



CONTENTS. XV 

Slate- Writing probably a Trick 166 

Dr. Beard's Exposures of Spiritistic Frauds . . . .168 

Ulrici on Professor Zollner's Experiments .... 169 

Importance of Transcendental Physics 170 

Scientific Views as to the Supernatural 170 

Parting from Germany 172 

Summit of the St. Gothard Pass 172 



LECTURE VI. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 

Ceesar's Worlc, and Peter's, and Paul's 192 

Reformed Catholicism . 193 

Count Campello 195 

Temporal Power of the Pope 196 

Duties of Protestantism in Italy 197 

Ancient Portrait Busts 199 

Julius Caesar 200 

Augustus Csesar 200 

Caligula and Claudius 200 

Nero, Titus, Trajan, Hadrian 201 

Socrates, ^schiues, Euripides 202 

Homer, Scipio Africanus, Aristotle 203 

The l^emosthenes of the Vatican 203 

The Julius Csesar of the Capitoline 206 

Pericles and Aspasia 209 

The University of Modern Athens 212 

Delphi 212 

A Night on Mount Parnassus . " 214 



PRELUDE I. 

NEW DEPARTURES IN AND FROM ORTHODOXY. 

The Siren School in Theology 3 

Self-Evident Truths in Religion . . . ... 4 

Axiomatic Theology 4 

Essentials in a Cosmopolitan Faith 4 

Professor Dorner on Probation after Death .... 7 

The Essential Christ 7 

Holy Faith and Saving Faith 9 

A Perfect Theodicy . . . 11 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



Probation in the Intermediate State 12 

Objections to Dorner's Eschatology 14 

German and American Churches 16 

Necessity of the Atonement 17 



PRELUDE II. 

DOES DEATH END PROBATION? 

Shakespeare and the Bhagvat Geeta 

Evil Steadfastness of Character 

Self-Propagating Power of Habit 

Death as a Profound Spiritual Experience 

Experiences in Sudden Deaths 

Moral Obduracy in Death 

Natural Effect of Final Impenitence . 

Anglican Orthodoxy .... 

Canon Farrar's Position 

Preaching to Spirits in Prison . . ' . 

The Great Gulf fixed .... 

Professor Park on Probation after Death 



51 

52 
54 
55 
56 
57 
57 
62 
63 
64 
67 
69 



PRELUDE HI. 

THE FUTURE OP CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Aristocratic Critics of the United States 89 

Municipal Reform at Home and Abroad ..... 90 

What is the Spoils System ? 91 

Aaron Burr as its Author 92 

The New Civil Service Law 93 

Its Friends and Opponents 93 

Loopholes in the New Enactment 94 

Unattained Objects to be sought . . . . . . .96 



PRELUDE IV. 

THE VANGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

Penurious Expenditures for Missions 119 

Reasons for Great Expenditures 120 

Self-Support by Native Churches 122 

Ideal Standard of Expenditure 126 

Imported Unbelief in Pagan Lauds . . . . • .128 
One Missionary for every 50,000 of Pagan Population . . 129 



CONTENTS. 



XVll 



PRELUDE V. 



AMERICAN AND FOREIGN TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 

Life Assurance Societies and Temperance 
Long Lives of Total Abstainers . 
The Two Wings of the Temperance Reform 
Importance of Using both .... 
The Annual Liquor Bill of the United States 
Mr. Gladstone on Intemperance . 
Constitutional Prohibition 
Wine-Drinking in Luxurious Circles . 
The Church of England Temperance Society 
Clerical Example of Total Abstinence . 



149 
. 149 

153 
. 153 

155 
. 156 

157 
. 159 

159 
. 160 



PRELUDE VL 

PROBATION AT DEATH. 

Repetition of Evil Choices 177 

Natural Effect of such Repetition 178 

Death Foreseen at a Distance . . . . . . .179 

Spiritual Seriousness in Death 183 

Resisting Light received at Death 184 

Natural Effect of such Resistance 189 



APPENDIX. 

I. The Decline of Rationalism in the German Universities . 219 

II. Theodore Christlieb and German Church Life . . .269 

III. The New House and its Battlement ; or, The Relations of 

the Temperance Reform to Civil Liberty. A Lecture in 

the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London .... 277 

IV. Reply to Professor Smyth, of Andover .... 303 
V. A Night on the Acropolis ; or, Art and History at Athens 349 



I. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND AND 
SCOTLAND, 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

NEW DEPARTURES IN AND FROM ORTHODOXY. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND riFTT-EIRST LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, JANUARY 8, 1883. 



" The decisive fact is this : The God-Man, who came for the pur- 
pose of seeking and saving the lost, has taught more imperatively than 
any other one that men who are lost when they die are lost forever." 
— Professor Park, Discourse at North Andover, 1880, p. 30. 

" Those of the early fathers who held the doctrine of an intermedi- 
ate place made no practical distinction between the condition of the 
soul previous to the resurrection and its condition after it. The 
wicked were miserable and the good were happy — and that eter- 
nally." — Professor Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 
410, 



" Once a mighty, warlike power, rushing from the Atlantic sea, 
spread itself with hostile fury over all Europe and Asia. That sea, 
indeed, was then navigable, and had an island fronting that mouth 
which you in your tongue call the Pillars of Hercules ; and this island 
was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and there was a passage 
hence for travellers of that day to the rest of the islands, as well as. 
from those islands to the whole opposite Continent, ... In this At- 
lantic island was formed a powerful league of kings, who subdued the 
entire island, together with many others, and parts also of the Conti- 
nent, besides which they subjected also to their rule the inland parts 
of Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe, also, as far as Tyrrhenia. . . . 
Subsequently, however, through violent earthquakes and deluges, 
which brought desolation in a single day and night, . . . the Atlantic 
island was plunged beneath the sea and entirely disappeared ; whence 
even now, that sea is neither navigable nor to be traced out," — The 
Timceus, Plato, vol, ii. pp. 328, 329. Bohn's edition. 

" I spoke as I saw, 
T report, as a man may of God's work. All 's Love, yet all 's Law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each faculty tasked, 
To perceive Him, has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was asked." 

Robert Browning. 



OCCIDENT. 



PRELUDE I. 

NEW DEPARTURES IN AND FROM ORTHODOXY. 

Give me no guess for a dying pillow. Let my 
tongue cleave to the roof of m}^ mouth and my right 
arm drop from its socket rather than that either 
should be emplo3"ed in putting under the head of 
any man, woman, or child, as a support in death, a 
mere conjecture, however plausible, Avhich may nev- 
ertheless prove to be false. The hypothesis of pro- 
bation after death is such a treacherous conjecture. 
It belongs to the Siren school of philosophy and the- 
ology.. So to teach it as to cause men to depend 
upon it is to do a mischief possibly more horrible 
than to spread pestilence, firebrands, and death. In 
God's name and presence, let us purify ourselves 
from complicity with such venturesomeness as may 
end in the ruin of souls. For one, I have made up 
my mind that I will not go hence trusting my own 
chances of eternal peace to the opportunity of re- 
pentance after death. What I will not do for my- 
self I will not, directly or indirectly, recommend 
others to do. 



4 OCCIDENT. 

God's opinions ought to be ours. What are the 
opinions of Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever as to new departures in regard to truths 
fundamental in religion ? There are a few self-evi- 
dent religious truths, as unchangeable as the very 
nature of things. They are certainties, not proba- 
bilities, not guesses. Self-evident axiomatic truth 
has no variableness nor shadow of turning. It re- 
veals God's opinions. It is He. 

It is a self-evident axiomatic truth that every man 
must be delivered from the love of sin and the guilt 
of it in order to obtain harmonization with his en- 
vironment by the infinite holiness of the moral law. 
Call hither Keshub Chunder Sen from the bank of 
the Ganges, Fukuzawa from Japan, Herbert Spen- 
cer from the Thames, the soul of Gambetta from the 
Seine, — I care not what agnostic or what cultured 
pagan theist, — and we shall all be agreed that -de- 
liverance from the love of sin and the guilt of it is 
essential to our peace with the moral law. On the 
two most fundamental points of what I love to call 
axiomatic theology, or the religion of self-evident 
truth, all serious men who believe in a moral law 
may be brought to an acceptance of a cosmopolitan 
faith. I confess I have some ambition to advance 
such a faith, and to hold as the basis of my own 
creed convictions acceptable to all thinking men 
throughout the world and in every age. On the 
basis of the cosmopolitan truths of axiomatic theol- 
ogy I have been standing on every intellectual and 
moral battle-field I have seen on the long war-path 
around the planet. The double deliverance from the 



NEW DEPAETUEES. 5 

love of sin and the guilt of it is the desire of all 
nations. The serious heart of humanity has never 
found intelligent peace in any human creed, but 
finds it swiftly in Christianity, when the gospel is 
presented in clear, devout, scholarly, aggressive, un- 
diluted form. 

As Christians, we believe that it is only by the 
new birth and by the Atonement that we can be de- 
livered from the love of sin and the guilt of it. We 
are profoundly convinced that, when we are deliv- 
ered from the love of sin, we are not thereby de- 
livered from the guilt of it. We believe that it is 
the sight of God's face in Christ that effectually 
melts the heart and produces regeneration. What 
we, therefore, wish to do for the world is to lift up 
before it the cross, because we find that when we see 
the cross it is no cross to bear the cross. Beholding 
God as a Redeemer makes us glad to take Him as 
Lord, and thus Christianity provides for our deliver- 
ance from the guilt of sin and the love of it. 
/ It is undeniable that character under irreversible 
natural law tends to final permanence — good or 
bad. / The longer any soul lives in the love of what 
God hates and in the hate of what God loves, the 
longer it is likely to do so. Fixation of character is 
the end of probation. Whenever and wherever an 
unchanging bent of character is attained, probation 
ends. It is self-evident that a final permanence or 
unchanging bent of character can be reached but 
once. 

The only safe philosophical answer, therefore, to 
the question : What must I do to be saved ? is : Ac- 



6 OCCIDENT. 

quire now similarity of feeling with God. Obtain 
now deliverance from both the love of sin and the 
guilt of sin. Now is the accepted time ; now is the 
day of salvation ; now, and perhaps not to-morrow, 
for character, without the loss of freedom, tends rap- 
idly to permanence. 

Whatever changes the accredited practical answer 
to the question : What must I do to be saved ? is 
fundamental in theology and philosophy. The hy- 
pothesis of probation after death does change this an- 
swer. It changes the scriptural answer. It changes 
the philosophical answer. It is, therefore, a funda- 
mental change. In the name of all sound philosophy 
and theology, as well as in that of the wants of the 
world, I repudiate departures from religious funda- 
mentals. I repudiate departures from doctrines that 
look like unessentials, if these apparent unessentials 
touch fundamentals. 

My object in this opening address is to set before 
you as clearly as I can what the standard orthodoxy 
of New England teaches as to probation after death ; 
and, next, what the so-called new departure teaches. 
In a subsequent prelude I shall discuss exegetically 
the question, '' Does death end probation ? " Here 
and now I am anxious only that you should compare, 
in broad outlines, the old and the new. I am in 
favor of the new. One of my central principles is to 
seize the new, the true, the strategic, and force it 
into practical application to current affairs. I am 
ready, I hope, in life and in death, to grasp the new, 
if it be better than the old ; otherwise not. [Ap- 
plause.] 



NEW DEPARTURES. i 

Professor Dorner, of Berlin, whom I revere for 
the larger part of the work he has done in German 
theology, holds doctrines and hypotheses concerning 
probation after death that many scholars of the high- 
est repute regard as exceedingly nebulous, erratic, 
unscientific, and anti-scriptural. Allow me to sum- 
marize his positions on this topic, and to contrast 
them with those I have received from New Eng- 
land Orthodoxy. I raise the question, New Eng- 
land Orthodoxy or German state church theology : 
which ? Park or Dorner : which ? That is a ques- 
tion of the hour, and it is really one of world-wide 
interest, because this high theme touches Christian 
missions. It touches all evangelical religious aggres- 
siveness throughout the earth. On this subject Ger- 
many, England, Scotland, India, Japan, Australasia, 
as well as our own land, may be expected to listen. 

Here, then, is the outline of what I, for one, not 
claiming to represent others, hold as orthodoxy : — 

1. God is immanent in the moral nature of every 
man, and whoever permanently rejects or accepts 
the innermost voice of conscience rejects or accepts 
the essential Christ. 

By the essential Christ I mean the Logos. " In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
with God, and the Word was God." This is the 
true light which lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world. 

2. Every free moral agent, therefore, has oppor- 
tunity to accept or reject the essential Christ. 

Orthodoxy is not tritheistic, although it is trinita- 
rian. Scholars on this platform do not believe in 



8 OCCIDENT. 

tliree Gods, but in one God. They do not diyide his 
substance, although they do not unify his subsisten- 
cies. The essential character of God is the essential 
character of Christ. Conscience does not inform us 
of the historic Christ, but it informs us of God's 
character, and God's character is Christ's charac- 
ter. I would recall here whatever has been said in 
the past of this lectureship concerning conscience 
as a revelation in man of truths essentially supernat- 
ural. 

3. Heathen, therefore, as their consciences reveal 
to them the essential condition of salvation, so far as 
it depends on man, have a probation as protracted 
and multiplex as their choices to obey or disobey 
conscience. 

While this is plainly a philosophical, it is also a 
scriptural truth. " In every nation, he that feareth 
God and worketh righteousness is accepted with 
Him." '' The kingdom of heaven is within us." 
"They that sin without law^ shall perish without 
law." The heathen, "having not the law, are a law 
unto themselves, their consciences bearing witness 
and their thoughts accusing or else excusing one 
another." 

4. It is through the divine mercy, as exhibited in 
an Atonement, that the heathen are saved, if at all, 
without hearing of the historical Christ. 

" Those who lived with the Logos," said Justin 
Martyr, " were Christians, as Socrates and Hera- 
clitus, and others like them." 

5. They who fear God and work righteousness, 
even if they have not heard of the historical Christ, 



NEW DEPARTUEES. 9 

have holy faith^ and tins would develop into his- 
torical saving faith on the presentation of evidence. 

This distinction between holy faith and saving 
faith is to be found in accredited scholarly systems 
of theology. Plato or Socrates, if saved, was saved 
by the Atonement, God's mercy covering their guilt 
for Christ's sake. So infants know nothing of the 
historical Christ, and yet are saved by the Atone- 
ment, God's arm undergirding them in the darkness. 

Do not say that I am supposing that a man is 
saved by his good works. Do not imagine that I 
teach that accepting the guidance of God in con- 
science is, for a man in the condition of any one in 
this audience, a sufficient proof of his loyalty to 
God. Do not say that I teach that man saves him- 
self. At this point I am speaking only of those to 
whom no presentation of the historic Christ has been 
made, but whose consciences alone, according to both 
Scripture and science, are a divine guide to the way 
of peace. 

6. Human nature is such, however, that without 
the influence of the gospel, only a few among mill- 
ions do attain deliverance from the love of sin, ac- 
quire real harmony with the moral law, and accept 
gladly, permanently, and unqualifiedly the essential 
Christ of conscience. 

7. A knowledge of the character, life, and death 
of the historic Christ must therefore be carried to 
the heathen and to the whole world. 

8. This formal presentation of the historic Christ 
immensely increases human responsibility, and also, 
as the history of the Christian ages shows, the force 



10 OCCIDENT. 

of the motives which deliver men from the love of 
sin. 

9. It is a searching self-evident truth, which can- 
not be too often emphasized, that men must be de- 
livered both from the love of sin and from the guilt 
of it, in order to have peace in presence of infinite 
holiness. 

10. Christianity, and it only of all the religions of 
the earth, teaches how deliverance from the love of 
sin may be effected by the new birth, and from the 
guilt of sin through an Atonement, without the viola- 
tion of any self-evident truth. 

11. It is the sight of an Atonement which is the 
chief force in producing the new birth. Beholding 
God as a historic Saviour makes us glad to take Him 
as Lord, and therefore the preaching of the gospel 
to all the world is the supreme work of those who 
would deliver the world from the love of sin and the 
guilt of it. 

12. Every man who is a free agent and has a con- 
science has a fair chance in this life to accept or 
reject the essential Christ. 

13. Every man who, in addition to these opportu- 
nities, is taught in this life the gospel of the histor- 
ical Christ, has more than a fair chance. 

14. Infants, idiots, lunatics, are not moral agents ; 
they have not sinned. The least we can say of any 
souls that pass out of this life without attaining 
moral responsibility is that they are in the hands of 
the Judge of all the earth, who will assuredly do 
right. They have no record of sin behind them, and 
the divine mercy enfolds them. As they have not 



NEW DEPAETUKES. 11 

learned the evils of sin, it is to be hoped that in 
death, at. the sight of God's face, they will acquire 
predominant harmony of soul with Him. That a 
state of education and progress may await such souls 
in another life is not denied. 

Nothing in these propositions is to be understood 
as impugning the doctrine of original sin or inher- 
ited evil propensity. I am using the word "sin" in 
its strict signification, as indicating evil personal 
choice. 

15. Probation in its strict sense ends at death. 
Orthodox theology teaches that even the lost souls 

of the universe are free agents. They retain ability, 
but have lost willingness to repent. If a soul is not 
a free agent, it cannot be virtuous or vicious. In 
one sense, therefore, probation continues forever with 
all souls. But in the strict sense probation means 
a state in which souls do, and not merely may, 
change from an undecided to a decided condition of 
loyalty or disloyalty to God. Orthodoxy teaches 
that these changes occur only in this life. 

16. Every responsible human being, by the gift of 
a free will and conscience, or by this gift and that 
of the knowledge of the gospel besides, having had 
a fair chance, or more than a fair chance, the divine 
]ove and mercy are not questionable ; a perfect the- 
odicy is possible ; the ways of God to men are jus- 
tified. 

In contrast with this outline, I give now a very 
swift sketch of the new departure, based chiefly on 
the state church theology of Germany, or, rather, 
on the eschatology of Dorner. 



12 OCCIDENT. 

1. An acceptance or rejection of the historic Christ 
is necessary in every case to salvation or its opposite. 

2. Decisive probation consists in the opportunity 
of the soul freely and intelligently to accept or re- 
ject the historic Christ. 

3. Those who die without a knowledge of the 
gospel have not had a full and fair probation. 

4. Infants, idiots, lunatics, and some heathen have 
evidently no opportunity in this life to accept or re- 
ject the historic Christ ; for they know nothing of 
him. 

5. As these classes have no decisive probation 
here, it is permissible to hope that they have one 
hereafter. 

6. In the intermediate state, between death and 
the general judgment, probation may continue for 
souls to whom a presentation of the historic Christ 
was not made in this life. 

7. These views offer a better theodicy — that is, 
a more complete justification of the waj^s of God to 
men — than the accepted and standard teaching of 
orthodoxy. 

Any friends of the new departure who are present 
will notice that I am very careful not to exaggerate 
the breadth of the departure. I do not affirm that 
the apologists for these divisive novelties teach that it 
is permissible to inculcate as a biblical dogma that 
certain classes of souls must have a probation here- 
after, and that, if they do not, no justification of the 
ways of God to men is possible. They do say that 
it is permissible to hope that such probation lies in 
the intermediate state, and that we must insist on 



NEW DEPARTURES. 13 

this hope if we are to cherish worthy ideas of the 
divine character. 

Where does Dorner teach what these seven prop- 
ositions contain ? In a score of passages of his " Sys- 
tematic Theology," especially in the section on Es- 
chatology, which I beg you to examine, if you are 
in doubt as to the source from which several recent 
American suggestions as to new theological depart- 
ures have been derived. (See the original German, 
or the translation in T. & T. Clarl^'s Theological 
Library of "Dorner's System of Christian Doctrine," 
vol. iv. pp. 373-434. See, also, an article on " Dr. 
Dorner's Position with Regard to Probation after 
Death," by the Rev. W. H. Cobb, in the " Biblio- 
theca Sacra " for October, 1882, pp. 751-773.) Here 
is a characteristic passage from Dorner: " The ab- 
soluteness of Christianity demands that no one be 
judged before Christianity has been made accessible 
and brought home to him ; but this is not the case 
in this life with millions of human beings. Nay, 
even within the Cluirch there are periods and circles 
where the gospel does not really approach men as 
that which it is. Moreover, those dying in child- 
hood have not been able to decide personally for 
Christianity. Jesus seeks the lost. The lost are 
to be sought also in the kingdom of the dead. The 
opposite view leads to an absolute. decree of rejection 
in reference to all who have died and die as heathen ; 
whereas Christian grace is universal." (" System of 
Christian Doctrine," vol. iv. p. 409.) 

Who that has learned what a scholarly orthodoxy 
really teaches does not see at a glance that these 



14 OCCIDENT. 

propositions are inaccurate, confused, misleading, 
and, to an appalling degree, spiritually hazardous ? 

1. The new departure begins with a most atro- 
ciously incorrect statement concerning the essential 
condition of salvation. 

2. It gives a false definition of what constitutes a 
full and fair probation. 

3. A first blunder leads to a second, and then a 
third is made to cover the second, and a fourth to 
cover the third. An inaccurate statement peculiar 
to many state church theologies as to the essential 
condition of salvation leads to a difficulty in vindi- 
cating the divine justice. In view of this difficulty, 
which ought never to have existed, the theory of a 
continued probation is adopted as a means of escape. 
Here, as elsewhere, orthodoxy begins right and ends 
right in its fundamental courses of thought, while 
heterodoxy begins wrong and ends wrong. 

Our fathers had much discussion over the doctrine 
of decrees ; and, indeed, it is a wonder that we do 
not have more, for whoever looks into the mighty 
themes of a theodicy must regard election, decrees, 
foreordination, free will, fate, the matters concern- 
ing which the angels debated in Milton's " Paradise 
Lost," as really supreme topics of philosophy as well 
as of religious science. Our thoughts are absorbed 
by secular matters ; otherwise we should be awake, 
as our fathers were, to the great problems involved 
in election. As to the salvation of elect infants only, 
scholarship has passed by this doctrine a long while. 
The new departure is really a reversion to a med- 
iseval form of theological speculation. This teach- 



NEW DEPARTUEES. 15 

ing of Dorner's seems to me almost as atrocious 
as the worst form of the old doctrine concerning 
decrees. 

4. I understand Dorner to deny that there is any 
sin that can ruin the soul, except a rejection of the 
historic Christ, proclaimed in the name of the mir- 
acles of the New Testament, or in that of proof of 
yet superior force to be presented after death. Evi- 
dence, of course, must go with the proclamation; 
and, if such evidence is not brought decisively home 
to the soul here, it will be in the next world. 

5. This series of propositions underrates what is 
scientifically known in our day as to the natural op- 
erations of conscience. It is hugely unscientific to 
suppose that, even without a knowledge of the his- 
toric Christ, a soul may not so disobey conscience as 
to drop into a condition of moral obduracy, and at- 
tain a final permanence of character dissimilar to 
that of God. It is necessary for Dorner to maintain^ 
and he does assert^ that without a knowledge of the 
historic Christ no soul can so sin as to he lost. 

6. It is spiritually hazardous, in an appalling de- 
gree, to give, as Dorner does, such definitions of 
what a full and decisive probation is that few men 
will think they have had a fair chance, and then to 
promise, on most easy and liberal conditions, a con- 
tinued probation. 

7. In practical effect, the distorted orthodoxy here 
opposed has always immensely injured all churches 
that have adopted it. The great Scottish missionary, 
Duff, said that the life of the German state churches 
can be described in one word, — petrifaction. This 



16 OCCIDENT. 

is not true of all of them, for there are many vigor- 
ous evangelical churches in Germany ; but, so far as 
Dorner's eschatology, so far as this idea of probation 
after death, has been brought into working influence 
over great congregations, so far as it has been ab- 
sorbed into the lives of preachers or people, it has 
destroyed Christian aggressiveness in a great degree. 
It has lowered the tone of preaching. It has cut the 
nerve of missions. It has as good as scuttled the 
ships that carry the glad tidings of the gospel to 
pagan lands. I have no lamp to guide my feet but 
that of experience. 

Do you complain that I am now speaking with im- 
plied irreverence for German scholarship, and that 
I have hitherto had the habit of treating it with the 
utmost respect ? No one ever heard me speak of 
German theology in its relations to the mass of the 
people as other than inferior to New England Ortho- 
doxy. Our churches are as superior to the German 
in their aggressive power, and in the preachableness 
of their doctrines, as German learning in matters of 
philosophical and scientific import is superior to ours. 
The German universities are better than ours ; but 
our churches are better than the German. Our 
preaching is better than theirs. Professor Christ- 
lieb, of Bonn, with whom I had the honor, not long 
ago, to hold many hours of conversation on the banks 
of the Rhine, has assailed the German state church 
theology for precisely the things that are copied out 
of it by some of the friends of the new departure. I 
am careful to say, however, that I discuss Dorner's 
views only, and not those of any preacher or theolo- 



NEW DEPAETURES. 17 

gian here. Christlieb teaches, with the emphasis of 
scriptural truth, the new birth and Atonement. He 
insists that we must be dehvered from the love of 
sin and the guilt of it. And what do the state 
church preachers say, in reply ? " Bei uns ist es 
nicht so ! ^^ " With us there is no such preaching. 
Why be perpetually disturbing the churches with 
the doctrine of the new birth, and with assertions of 
the vicarious nature of the Atonement ? Our con- 
victions are that whoever lives about right will come 
out right, and that, if there be no decisive probation 
here, there will be one hereafter." 

This idea, that decisive probation consists always 
and only in the free, intelligent rejection of the his- 
toric Christ, cannot be opposed without great danger. 
I run enormous risks in attacking it here to-day, for 
I shall be quoted as saying that I do not believe that 
Christ is the author of our salvation. I shall be 
quoted as saying that whoever follows his conscience 
is safe, whether he believes in Christ or not. Do not 
be misled by any such random assertions of people 
who are not in this assembly from week to week and 
year to year. 

Our salvation is wrought through Christ, and 
through Him only. If I were not a believer in the 
historic Christ, I could find in philosophy no peace 
for my soul ; for I think I know, as well as that I 
am alive, that I must be delivered from the love of 
sin and the guilt of it, and that when I am deKvered 
from the love of it I am not from the guilt of it. I 
want an Atonement. I want the sight of the cross 
to melt me and produce in my soul the new birth. 

2 



18 OCCIDENT. 

Without the cross, philosophy is to me a Gehenna 
for the soul, because it sho\YS that of all creatures 
we are the most miserable. We have sinned; the 
record is against us in the past ; but there is no 
remedy for our guilt. In practice, only they who 
perceive that God is inconceivably mercif al, or that 
He is ready to cover our guilt with an Atonement, 
come into affectionate, total, irreversible loyalty to 
Him. To take God as Saviour and choose Him as 
Lord, — this is faith ; this is what makes a man faith- 
ful. If Christianity is not to be given us as the 
basis of hope for deliverance from the love of sin 
and the guilt of it, I have no hope of such deliver- 
ance. Nevertheless, I hold what I conceive to be the 
biblical doctrine : that if there be a Cornelius who 
has not heard of the historic Christ, but who fears 
God and works righteousness, he is accepted of God 
through an Atonement. It is Revelation which af- 
firms that they who sin without law shall perish 
without law. 

I am not a partisan in theology. I have great 
reverence for many who admire the German state 
church theology ; but while I respect them as men, 
I do not agree to follow them as theological leaders. 
I believe we have better leadership at home on this 
matter than we can obtain at present in Germany. 
They who follow Corner's eschatology, and reject 
average New England, Scottish, and even Anglican 
teaching on this topic of probation after death, are 
like men who go abroad to see the Alps and the 
Himalayas, the Nile and the Ganges, and have never 
seen the American Great Lakes, the Yosemite, and 



NEW DEPAETUEES. 19 

Niagara. We have discussed this topic of probation, 
probably, more thoroughly in New England than it 
was ever discussed in Germany. 1 believe New 
England theology has now a right to stand upon its 
record of scholarly discussions, and rise to its full 
height of self-respect and earnestness, and lead the 
world into biblical views on these colossal themes. 
[Applause.] There never was open to it a better 
opportunity for such service. Scotch theology is 
pre-occupied at this moment with questions of Old 
Testament criticism. English theology is having its 
attention distracted by the swift advance of great 
problems connected with disestablishment. Mate- 
rialism is occupying the attention of many abroad. 
Agnosticism, historic skepticism, are matters of more 
present importance than this new departure. But 
with us there seems to be a providential call for the 
discussion of eschatology. 

I have no right to give advice to anybody, but 
what I purpose to do, for one, is to claim liberty for 
scholarly and advanced views whenever mediaeval 
and reversionary views try to throttle them. You 
say that the men who hold the doctrines of the new 
departure do not preach them. But if they hold 
these doctrines they do not preach the orthodox ones. 
[Laughter.] And just as a man may be choked by 
holding a little heresy, so a whole church may be 
choked by one section of it looking exceedingly grave, 
perhaps indignant, if the other section preaches or- 
thodoxy without dilution. I will not say that I 
would have every church member who holds these 
views of Dorner turned out of his connections ; but 



20 OCCIDENT. 

I would have every applicant for a preacher's posi- 
tion very candidly examined on this matter. [Ap- 
plause.] I think I may venture to say that it is safe 
to agree with Andover and Boston in the proposi- 
tion that a man who definitely champions Dorner's 
eschatology is not precisely the person to teach our 
young men theological science. [Applause.] This 
audience represents evangelical Christendom. You 
are not Congregationalists merely, and I beg your 
pardon for touching on the troubles of the small de- 
nomination to which it is my fortune to belong. I 
have been speaking so long for all the evangelical 
denominations that I hardly know whether I am a 
Congregationalist, a Methodist, a Baptist, an Episco- 
palian, or a Presbyterian. The real truth is that the 
foundation of Congregationalism is Plymouth Rock, 
and that this rock is not disintegrating nor splitting. 
[Applause.] A little dust is being blown off it., but 
it never belonged to the rock. [Loud laughter and 
applause.] 



LECTURE I. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT EN" ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 

God be thanked that in our time there are no for- 
eign lands ! Csesar could not drive around the Roman 
Empire in less than one hundred days ; we can now 
send a letter, a bale of goods, a man, around the 
whole globe in ninety. The antipodes are not far- 
ther from us than were the outskirts of the Roman 
Empire from the city of the Seven Hills. If Cse- 
Bar's neighbors were all who dwelt on the rim of the 
Mediterranean, ours are all who dwell on the rim 
of the whole earth. Communication is so swift be- 
tween country and country that no shores are dis- 
tant. There can be no more hermit nations. No 
people can live behind a screen. The mental seclu- 
sion of false faiths must be broken up. Only an 
hundred years ago and in all previous history, the 
nations were land-locked bodies of water; a wave 
raised in any one of them did not naturally flow into 
another ; but the levels of civilization have risen ; 
these isolated lakes have flowed together ; and now 
a^iy great wave raised anywhere in commerce, sci- 
ence, politics, education, or religion, breaks sooner or 
later, in foam and thunder, on all the shores of the 
advanced nations. We cannot cut ourselves off from 
the other side of the globe ; humanity is a unit, com- 



22 OCCIDENT. 

mercially, scientifically, socially, industrially, almost 
politically, to-day. Hereafter the earth will be healed 
or poisoned very much as a whole. The isolation of 
people from people is becoming wholly and perma- 
nently impracticable. The light of the Occident can- 
not be hidden from the Orient. The national era has 
passed away ; the international and cosmopolitan has 
begun. 

In the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, at Rome, Mi- 
chael Angelo has represented the creation of the first 
human soul. The picture exhibits a Divine Form 
floating in infinite space, and extending a hand to- 
ward the upraised palm of Adam. The man lies 
almost prone upon the earth. He is a body, but not 
yet a soul. Although the members of his form are 
complete, symmetrical, majestic, they do not yet feel 
their unity with each other. A spark passes from 
the divine forefinger to the suppliant, limp, passive 
hand of man. The different members of his form 
are at last unified. They possess a living soul, which 
is one and indivisible. This picture is a proper 
emblem of the present condition of the world. The 
nations are the different members of the body of 
humanity, and yet they are not unified by a com- 
mon soul. What is lacking is a cosmopolitan faith, 
a divine spark, making the innermost convictions of 
the nations the same on all high themes. As I study 
the signs of the heavens and the earth, the uplifted 
suppliant hand of humanity, a body not yet thor- 
oughly vitalized, is being approached by a Form 
loftier than the stars. A Divine Hand is being ex- 
tended toward our race ; nay, has been extended 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 23 

for thousands of years, but in these last ages is be- 
coming more distinctly visible than ever before. I 
anticipate the passage of a unifying spark from the 
Divine Hand to the form of humanity, not yet uni- 
fied ; the transmission of an electric flame, a vivify- 
ing faith, a series of scientific convictions concerning 
things natural and supernatural, that will make the 
world intellectually and morally one. This spark 
will be, of course, a scholarly and aggressive Chris- 
tianity in both its historical and its experimental 
form. With it there will be united all accredited 
science, for God is one and all truth is one. A sci- 
entific supernaturalism is a phrase by which I like to 
describe the unified teachings of Christianity and 
science. And it is this on the passage of which 
from God's finger to man's I look with awe, as the 
greatest thing I have seen in my tour around the 
world, and the greatest thing I can promote by any 
review of my experience. 

My heart is on the Ganges ; it is on the Thames ; 
it is in the great cities within the shadow of Fuji- 
san ; it is in the islands of the sea ; it is under the 
Southern Cross. I am attached to every country in 
which I have found men struggling toward the light. 
But my heart, although there, is here also, for we 
are a part of this dull, lethargic body, not yet filled 
by the divine electric force. In the growing spirit- 
ual unity of the whole human family, I would have 
the head feel its responsibility. The Occident is the 
head of the earth and the right hand of it. Near- 
est to God, let us transmit the spark of scientific 
supernaturalism into the civilization of the whole 



24 OCCIDENT. 

planet, and so make its reclining form stand upon 
its feet and worship God. 

It is the morning of September 7, 1880, and you 
are in New York harbor, leaving your native coantr}^, 
on the day when it is announced, officially, that it has 
50,000,000 inhabitants. The gray sky, the familiar 
shores, the untried experience before you, the part- 
ing from scores of friends, make the hour pathetic. 
You are wrenched at last from the firm mother 
earth ; you have seen the last quivering, intense look 
of farewell on the faces of some who are nearest and 
dearest to you. The white gulls dip their wings in 
the sea, and utter their low plaintive cry in the au- 
tumnal wind. You are more lonely than they. You 
have made no predictions ; you know not what is to 
be your experience ; perhaps you may be called home 
within a few months ; you have promised no one that 
you will make the circuit of the globe. As the gates 
of the ocean open and you begin to hear the voice of 
the great deep, you have a feeling that, possibly, you 
are looking for the last time on America. You lean 
over the gunwale with one dearer to you than life, 
and repeat the words of a German poet : — 

" Flow fair beside thy Palisades, 
O Hudson, fair and free. 
Past proud Manhattan's shore of ships 
And green Hoboken's tree. 

'* The white sails gleam along the main. 
God bless the land, say we ; 
'T is a good land to fall in with. 
And a pleasant land to see." 

Undoubtedlv the innumerable forms and motions 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 25 

of waves, the foam with its endless varieties of 
tracery and movement, and the reflected light with 
its multitudinous colors and sparkles and its far-flash- 
ing glades of fire, are the most beautiful things vis- 
ible at sea ; the rainbows, the stars, the changing 
moon, the sun, the shoreless horizons, the storms, the 
most sublime. Beauty is so interwoven with sublim- 
ity in the sea that the ocean as a whole is a series of 
musical notes of immeasurable depth of tone overlaid 
by a net-work of finer harmony, as, in a great anthem 
in a cathedral, the tones of the organ are overlaid by 
the soft chanting of human voices. The green trans- 
lucency of the crest of a wave before it breaks is in 
itself one of the most marvelous of the minor beau- 
ties of the sea ; but that translucency laced with 
foam and crossed by sunlight and shadow in alter- 
nation, and the whole in motion, is incapable of 
being transferred to canvas even by Ruskin's ej^es 
and Turner's pencils. It happens, at times, as a 
ship falls from the crest to the hollow of a wave, that 
the prow, or, it may be, a whole side, dashes up a 
cloud of light spray as white as snow. According 
to the position of the sun, this bank of flakes takes 
the glory of reflected or of transmitted radiance ; 
and by its lightness and almost spirit-like life gives 
to the whole heavy ship its own atmosphere, until 
the massive hull and spars seem things of spirit too, 
and float between sky and sea as if a vision. At sun- 
set or sunrise in a clear sky at sea, when the disc of 
the great orb is nearly withdrawn from sight behind 
a watery horizon full of hurrying waves, the motion 
of the distant billows across the face of the sun 



26 OCCIDENT. 

seems transferred to the sun itself, which appears for 
a few seconds flattened and flying along the rim of 
the restless deep. Its flame and its emptiness make 
the poetry of this ocean fire canoe. It has no occu- 
pant, no oar, no sail, but is a perfect boat of dazzling 
radiance, shooting with incredible rapidity along the 
tossing edge of the empurpled and golden waves. 

England over the bow ; America over the taffrail ; 
Greenland, Iceland, Norway, to the left ; South Amer- 
ica, Africa, Spain, France, to the right, you stand 
alone on your ship's deck at midnight, at the centre 
of the Atlantic, and behold in thought human life in 
multitudinous aspects and nature in all her zones. 
The whole history of western civilization rises natu- 
rally before you, and you are brought into strange 
sympathy Avith all the lands which the ocean touches. 
The rolling of the ship in a heavy swell gives the 
masts a stately motion among the constellations. 
This swaying of the spars and yards across the sky 
like gigantic pointers has a wild look, as the sweep 
of the reeling timbers runs from Cassiopea's chair 
almost down to the Pleiades. Under the brass hoods 
of the binnacles hang the compass-cards beneath the 
strong light of lamps, and your ship threads the black, 
tumultuous sea with a sure movement by the mystic 
guidance of the magnetic needle. But, in the four 
quarters of the world toward which you look in the 
seething darkness, you behold generations of men 
passing through the vexed sea of history not alto- 
gether with a sure movement. They are not easily 
able to free themselves from the tortures of pathless- 
ness by looking at the moral and intellectual needles 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 27 

hung beneath the bmnacles and under the strong 
lamps of the boasted culture of our times. It is 
hardly lawful to utter all that obtains a voice in the 
soul in the supreme moments of solitude. " Fixed 
ideas about God and human nature," says De Toc- 
queville, " are indispensable to the daily practice of 
men's lives, but the practice of their lives prevents 
them from acquiring such ideas. The difficulty ap- 
pears to be without a parallel." (De Tocqueville, 
*' Democracy in America," vol. ii. book i. chap, v.) 
You meditate long on this difficulty, as you look to- 
ward past, present, and future generations on north, 
south, east, and west. The frozen seas, the torrid 
seas, the sunrise, the sunset, the night, throw back 
upon you the deepest human problems in your soli- 
tude in mid-ocean. In the region called Conscience 
in the human soul, when the laws of the spiritual 
portion of human nature are better understood, will 
be found a moral needle related to all the universe 
by spiritual meridians, and as sensitive as those of 
the most trembling compass, and no more subject 
to variation, and making the safe circumnavigation 
of the darkest zones of duty and history at last a 
possibility of fixed science. Your prayer is that 
God may send into the world a complete knowledge 
of the moral magnetic needle and a correct chart of 
all the oceans of the human soul. Mental science 
in its ethical portions has yet greater advances to 
make than navigation made at the discovery of the 
mariner's compass. 

Crossing the Atlantic, you are intensely interested 
not only in what is on it, and in it, and beyond it, 



28 OCCIDENT. 

but in what is under it. Scholars begin to whisper 
strange things about the lost Atlantis, of which the 
Azores are the remnants. You are told that Occi- 
dent and Orient had their mother in this lost Atlan- 
tis. In the progress of ancient ages, the civilization 
of Egypt seems to spring into existence, like Minerva 
from the head of Jupiter, full panoplied from the 
start. But you find that a few investigators begin 
to dream that Egypt was probably colonized from 
Atlantis, a mighty island, as large as Australia, lying 
off the mouth of the Mediterranean, at Gibraltar. 
You read in Plato of Atlantis colonizing not merely 
Europe, but Africa and portions of Asia and parts 
of the continent beyond Atlantis, toward the sunset. 
You raise the question whether the cities of Central 
America, some of which to this day have the same 
names to a letter with certain cities in Asia Minor, 
may not have originated in this now submerged 
island. Plato represents Solon as learning in Egypt 
that Atlantis sank beneath the sea in a single night. 
(See the " Timsetis," 25 ; or Jowett's *' Translation of 
the Dialogues of Plato," vol. iii. pp. 609, 610.) You 
remember that Guyot and other physical geogra- 
phers affirm that the Azores lie in a zone of fracture 
of the crust of our earth. The small waist of our 
own continent, the rifted lands between which the 
Mediterranean lies, the Isthmus of Suez, the promon- 
tories and islands of Southern Asia and the East 
Indies, show this to have been a line of terrific up- 
heavals and depressions. Leaning over your ship's 
gunwale at the middle of the Atlantic, you look 
into the ocean, and ask whether the best subject left 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 29 

in modern times for an epic poem is not Plato's lost 
Atlantis. A few months later you are in Athens, 
and meet Dr. Schliemann, in his Greek mansion and 
museum. You say to him, " You have uncovered 
Troy ; why do you not dredge for the lost Atlantis, 
of which Plato speaks ? " And the doctor replies, 
with the enthusiasm of a classical scholar, "• Where 
is the passage in the ' Timseus ' ? I will read it be- 
fore I sleep." A score of books (see "Atlantis; or, 
the Antediluvian World," by Ignatius Donelly, a 
volume valuable chiefly for its references) have lately 
appeared, defending the Atlantidean theory of the 
origin of that mysterious semi - civilization which 
founded the cities of which the ruins remain to as- 
tonish us in Central America. Perhaps the unknown 
mound - builders of the Mississippi Valley were de- 
generate representatives of a forgotten Aztec race, 
originating in a lost Atlantis. 

■Probably the Atlantidean theory has been sup- 
ported so effectually by the discoveries of the ship 
Challenger that when put forward only as a theory 
it will never be quite laughed at again. The ship 
Challenger has assured the world that a submerged 
continental island lies underneath the middle Atlan- 
tic. Strangely close resemblances are found to exist 
between the plant and animal life of the Azores and 
of the nearest coasts of Brazil. One speculation is 
that this mighty island went down when the windows 
of heaven were opened and the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up, in the time of the Deluge, and 
that the representative of the race, Noah, being car- 
ried with his family in the ark away from the scene 



30 OCCIDENT. 

of ruin, began the peopling of the valley of the Eu- 
phrates. The zone of fracture in the earth, the tra- 
ditions of many nations as to the Deluge, point, it 
is claimed, to the sinking of Atlantis. I do not in- 
dorse this speculation by any means ; but you are 
crossing the Atlantic, and it is necessary that you 
should be not merely not sea-sick, but not sick of 
the sea. You are beginning a tour around the world, 
and must beware of narrowing your outlook over the 
past. I would have your historic vistas go back, not 
to Greece and Rome merely, not to the Nile and the 
Ganges and no farther, not to those mysterious early 
seats of the Aryan population on the slopes between 
the Himalayas and the Caspian, without question as 
to what was the yet earlier home of the foremost 
portion of the human race. I would have the vistas 
of your retrospect go back to the unknown origin of 
the Egyptian and Arjan civilization. Somewhere 
man must have been developed through ages into 
the use of lofty standards in most matters before 
the Egyptian civilization could have sprung forth. 
It is certainly not incredible at all that Orient 
and Occident had their mother in the lost Atlantis. 
England is the mother of America; Germany and 
Scandinavia at large are the mother of England ; 
Asia Minor is the mother of Germany ; the Assyrian 
slope, between the Himalayas and the Caspian, is 
the mother of Asia Minor, and, in some sense, of 
Greece and Italy ; but the mother of that slope and 
of Egypt is, possibly, Atlantis. The mother of At- 
lantis is Almighty Providence. Here, then, at the 
very outset of the voyage, we put a girdle around 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 81 

the earth, and begin to perceive that all men are of 
one blood, as far east, at least, as Calcutta. 

In response to invitation sent to you before leav- 
ing America, you give courses of lectures under most 
fortunate circumstances in London, Edinburgh, Glas- 
gow, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin, Belfast. You 
make, in the course of nine months, some one hun- 
dred and thirty-five public appearances in the Brit- 
ish Islands. Nine out of ten of your audiences are 
a great surprise to you in point of their quantity as 
well as of their quality. You venture to hope that 
perhaps you are not entirely throwing away your 
life, for conscienceless cormorants among the pub- 
lishers of London scatter thirteen different editions 
of your books around your path. Your chief useful- 
ness is in harrowing in this spiritual seed. It is not 
scattered by any agency or hint of yours. You have 
not the slightest financial interest in the speculations 
of the London publishing thieves. Nevertheless, on 
the whole, you are grateful to them for giving you 
an opportunity to be heard through the printed page, 
as well as by the voice. Your experience in this 
particular continues the same in Bombay, Calcutta, 
and Madras, and even in Shanghai and Yokohama. 
Under the Southern Cross, especially in Sydney, 
Melbourne, and Adelaide, the most brilliant group 
of cities in the Southern Hemisphere, you find this 
sprinkled coating, — for no other word will ade- 
quately describe the result of the activity of the cor- 
morants, — this covering of the furrowed earth with 
seed of unauthorized editions of your books, continu- 
ing to be a part of your outlook and the chief source 



82 OCCIDENT. 

of your usefulness. You authorize a complete edi- 
tion by a most reputable London publisher, but no 
protection can be had for it in the present state of 
international law as to copyright, and it is probably 
outsold by the unauthorized copies. Your discus- 
sions in Boston are followed by the efforts of distin- 
guished men. The book which comes before the 
world as the result of their course of lectures in the 
Boston Monday Lectureship goes around the world. 
You are absent from a certain platform, but the men 
who occupy it while you are gone are heard to the 
ends of the earth, and you buy under the Southern 
Cross English editions of their lectures. "A Calm 
View of Temperance," by a university chancellor, 
turns out to be a calm before a storm. You read 
the reply of the prince of all living orators, Mr. Phil- 
lips, — God bless him ! — and this answer, printed 
in the English editions, side by side with the Calm 
View, swallows it as the rod of Moses swallowed 
the rods of the magicians. 

Your object abroad is not so much to visit places 
as men. Your main purpose is to find out what ad- 
vanced thought really is in the different nations you 
study. You are most interested in their religious 
and intellectual condition, their philosophical ten- 
dencies, their gradual approach to the Divine Hand 
from which must come the spark that is to unify 
humanity. 

How are you to ascertain what advanced thought 
is in any nation ? Usually in five ways : — 

1. By approaching, if possible, without questions, 
closely enough to the real leaders of thought to hear 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 33 

their heartbeats; to examine, in some sense, their 
spiritual pulses ; and to ascertain on what they se- 
cretly depend most in philosophy and faith, in life 
and at death. 

2. By putting copious lists of incisive and com- 
prehensive questions to both progressive and con- 
servative leaders on strategic points, and recording 
and comparing the answers. 

3. By studying the unforced tendencies of edu- 
cated young men. 

4. By applying these tests in many different circles 
of opposite opinions. 

5. By a careful estimate of the amount that en- 
lightened men are willing to sacrifice in time, toil, 
money, and reputation for the defence of their opin- 
ions. 

In regard to each of ten departments in the life 
of every nation which you visit on your tour of the 
world, you put five questions : — 

1. What are the demands of its advanced thought 
in religion, philanthropic reform, politics, education, 
philosophy, literature, science, art, industry, and so- 
cial life ? 

2. What are the hindrances to the progress of its 
advanced thought ? 

3. What would be the future development of the 
nation if its advanced thought were followed in its 
own practice ? 

4. What points in its advanced thought or action 
are worthy of imitation in other nations ? 

5. What changes in each nation's character and 
development would probably result from the fusion 



84 OCCIDENT. 

of its own best thought in each of the ten depart- 
ments with the best of other nations ? 

Of all these questions perhaps the most interesting 
to the speculative student is the last, but the answer 
to it must depend on the utmost accuracy and defi- 
niteness in the replies to the others. A full account 
of what one sees and thinks and feels in a tour of 
the world would include detailed and vivid answers 
to all these fifty questions. It would embrace eager 
studies of the geography and history of every land ; 
the inheritance, achievement, and native endowment 
of every people ; and of every prominent public man, 
whether now alive or yet influential as a historic spirit 
brooding above the scene of his earthly labors. 

Only glimpses of a few of these fascinating topics 
can be given within the narrow bounds of one 
course of lectures. On the land and on the sea your 
thoughts are full of these inquiries, but only frag- 
ments of the answers to them can be presented here 
and now. You go armed with long lists of questions 
as lawfully audacious and searching as you can pos- 
sibly make them ; and you put them right and left, 
sometimes in company and sometimes to individ- 
uals. Johnson said a traveller brings home what he 
carries; but it should be added that, if the traveller 
carries questions enough, he may bring home im- 
mensely more than the questions. 

Applying these tests, what do you find to be some 
of the most suggestive traits of English and Scottish 
advanced thought ? 

1. Unflinching demand for the application of the 
scientific method, that is, of definition and induction, 
to all subjects, however sacred. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 35 

If there be one thing written on the face of our 
age more clearly than any other, it is that all topics 
must be submitted to a most thorough scientific 
examination, whether we make new departures or 
adhere to old ideas. We must revere the scientific 
spirit, whether it be radical or conservative in its 
outcome. You cannot live in England a week, in the 
more cultured circles, without feeling that you are a 
ninny and a fool, if you do not believe in the sci- 
entific method in its application to the most sacred 
doctrines of religion and philosophy and art, as well 
as to politics and social science. Clear ideas at any 
cost ! This is the universal watchword of the Occi- 
dent. Let us observe, let us define, let us draw in- 
ductive conclusions. 

2. British advanced thought believes in the frontal 
more than in the coronal eye of the soul ; that is, in 
logical and Aristotelian more than in spiritual and 
Platonic methods of searching for truth. 

This is a defect of the English mind and of the 
American. When you reach India, in your tour of 
the globe, you will find people who believe in their 
coronal eye ; who see God in an intuitive way, as 
Emerson did. There is very little of this in Eng- 
land, there is very little in Scotland ; but I think 
there is more north of the Tweed than south of it. 
The Scotch have a window in the dome of their 
souls ; but they have such an immense front window 
that they are chiefly occupied in gazing out of it. 
Rarely, except in periods of mighty religious fer- 
vor, do Occidentals look steadily and intently aloft 
through the dome of the soul. They have occasion- 



36 OCCIDENT. 

ally thus looked aloft to immense purpose in British 
religious history; but, in general, Scotchmen, Eng- 
lishmen, and Americans believe in experience, ob- 
servation, definition, induction, the scientific method, 
and nothing else. It is a gross but nearly uncon- 
fessed deficiency of Occidental advanced thought, 
that it studies the Universe almost exclusively 
through the frontal and hardly at all through the 
dome-window in the cathedral of the spirit. Only 
clear ideas and spiritual purposes united can lead us 
into safe opinions. 

3. It is a characteristic of the more cultured cir- 
cles in England, and especially in Scotland, to rid- 
icule the vagueness, evasiveness, slatternliness, and 
untenableness of materialistic and agnostic definitions 
of matter and life. 

A distant and careless study of advanced thought 
in Great Britain may increase, but a close and care- 
ful study of it is sure to diminish, your respect for 
agnosticism and materialism. England, you think, 
is the home of agnosticism. So it is. The chief de- 
fenders of materialism are in Great Britain. But I 
am profoundly convinced, after conversations with 
many leaders of philosophical thought in University 
centres and elsewhere in the British Islands, that 
really advanced thinking in England is fundamen- 
tally anti- materialistic, anti- agnostic, and so really 
anti-Spencerian. You are sitting one day in Edin- 
burgh, with a company of learned men, at table at 
dinner, and one of them affirms that Herbert Spen- 
cer cannot read German. You think this must be 
a mistake, and turn to Professor Calderwood, and 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 37 

inquire, " Is it true ? That is a strange assertion." 
" I have always understood it to be the truth." You 
ask the views of the whole company, and find that 
not a man doubts the statement. Agnosticism, as 
represented by Spencer, has a very poor following 
north of the Tweed. You are in the study of Lionel 
Beale, one day, in London, Herbert Spencer's home, 
and he says, " That man's books contain so much 
false physiology that they will not be read ten years 
after his death, except as literary curiosities." And 
Lionel Beale is supposed to know something of phys- 
iology. You are afterward in Germany, and you 
find that Herbert Spencer is regarded as a bright 
man, indeed, but by no means as a leader of modern 
philosophical thought. In short, as compared with 
Herman Lotze, you hear Herbert Spencer called a 
charlatan. It pains you not a little to find that your 
own country has large circles that follow him so 
loyally. It pains you to find that there is a Brit- 
ish materialistic school. You happen to express this 
view in company to professors of Edinburgh and 
Glasgow, and one of them turns upon you somewhat 
sternly, and says, " There is no British materialis- 
tic school. Britain includes Scotland and England. 
There is no Scotch materialistic school. There is 
no English materialistic school. If there is any ma- 
terialistic school in these islands, it is a London and 
a Cockney materialistic school." This is Professor 
Tait, of Edinburgh. You hear the same sentiment 
expressed by Professor Yeitch, of Glasgow, the biog- 
rapher of Sir William Hamilton. But there is an 
Alexander Bain in Scotland, who defines matter, in 



88 OCCIDENT. 

the agnostic Spencerian way, as a " double - faced 
somewliat, physical on one side and spiritual on the 
other." You ask Lionel Beale what he thinks of 
this definition, and he says, " It is obyious nonsense." 
You quote that opinion to Professor Yeitch, and Pro- 
fessor Tait, and to a dozen others whom I will not 
have the pedantry to name, and you find them all 
repudiating this central key -stone of modern ma- 
terialistic theories. Herbert Spencer is not spoken 
of with profound intellectual respect in the circles of 
the most advanced thought in Scotland, England, 
and Germany. Do not misunderstand me. This 
man has immense influence abroad. His scheme of 
thought is applied to all classes of subjects by a cer- 
tain arrogant and noisy school of writers. But I am 
distinguishing between thought advanced enough to 
be really first class and that which is not more than 
third or fourth or fifth class. 

4. The conviction that we must upset natural law, 
and teach not that the universe is governed by law, 
but only that it is governed according to law, is one 
of the profoundest scientific inspirations which Brit- 
ish advanced thought offers to a lofty life. 

You are conversing with Lionel Beale in the man- 
ner once common in the days of George Combe, and 
not yet outgrown. " Is it not fortunate," you say, 
" that this age knows so much of natural law ? 
Ought we not to congratulate ourselves that human- 
ity is coming to some real knowledge of the natu- 
ral laws of the universe and to a certain loyalty to 
them ? " " Yes," answers this great physiologist ; 
" but what we need most now is somebody to upset 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 39 

natural law." As Herman Lotze, Sir William Ham- 
ilton, Clerk Maxwell, Dr. Carpenter, and a score of 
others possessing intellectual authority, have taught 
us, we have no right to say that the Universe is gov- 
erned by natural laws, but only that it is governed 
according to natural laws. Natural law, without 
God's will behind it, is no more than a glove without 
a hand in it. Natural law is a process, not a power ; 
a method of operation, not an operator. God is om- 
nipresent in all natural forces, and, as matter cannot 
move itself, all force must originate outside of mat- 
ter, — that is, from an omnipresent, infinite Will. 

5. Advanced thought in England insists on what 
Carlyle calls natural supernaturalism. 

I was amazed to find so little religious disturbance 
in British higher circles by agnosticism and materi- 
alism. Carlyle represents really advanced thought 
in this matter. I admit there is enough of the lit- 
erature of agnosticism abroad ; but, as an editor of 
a famous London review said, not long since, the 
articles the agnostics publish are more in the style 
of military ostentation than of earnest battle. The 
agnostics and the materialists keep their forces be- 
hind the hill of London journalism, and march them 
around and around the hill ; and jou think there is 
an immense army of them, for you never see the 
end. Many of our young editors here, a great num- 
ber of smatterers in philosophy among literary men, 
and not a few graduates of our universities who have 
not mastered philosophy, think that the chief sign of 
the times is the marching of this little army around 
the top of the London height. It is visible to the 



40 OCCIDENT. 

eyes of the young Bengalese, of the young Japan- 
ese, of the young Chinese, of the young Australa- 
sian, and they far too often think this marching is 
the mighty tramp of modern progress. 

You go to London, you enter university circles, 
you come into contact with men like Clerk Maxwell, 
whose '' Life " I hold in my hand, and which has 
just dropped from the press, and you find that this 
vaunted philosophy, this agnosticism, this semi-ma- 
terialistic and often practically atheistic speculation, 
is really not controlling the most advanced thought 
of the British Islands, and especially not the most 
advanced thought of Germany. Haeckel is one of 
the most ridiculed of the learned men in Germany, 
simply because he is the defender of philosophi- 
cal materialism. Clerk Maxwell dies when you are 
in London. Who is he? Let Helmholtz tell you. 
Who is Helmholtz ? Probably the foremost . physi- 
cist in Germany. You have a conversation with him, 
months later, while in Germany, and he expresses 
his general accord with Lotze's principles, and his 
anxiety that the successor of Lotze should teach the 
anti-materialistic Lotzian philosophy. Helmholtz 
goes to London to deliver a eulogy of Clerk Max- 
well. The elite of the British scientific world listen 
to the address. Clerk Maxwell was as devout a 
Christian as ever lay on a death-bed : a man equipped 
with a mathematical knowledge which a Huxley and 
a Tyndall do not possess ; a man discussing the old 
and the new atomic theory, crystallization, the ori- 
gin of life, and other similar topics that lie on the 
border-land between religion and science, from the 



ADVANCED THOUGHT I:N' ENGLAND. 41 

point of view of the most exact research, and utterly- 
repudiating agnosticism and accepting the supernat- 
ural. He is eulogized by Helmholtz for his scientific 
knowledge, and placed on the pinnacle of scientific 
fame. His unflinching theism is regarded as one of 
his greatest claims to scientific respect. 

You are in England when George Eliot is buried. 
There is a sermon delivered over her grave asserting 
the immortality of the soul. 

You are in England when Thomas Carlyle passes 
into the world into which all men haste. You stand 
at his grave at Ecclefechan ; you visit his lonely- 
home at Craigenputtock ; you fill your soul with 
what he called natural supernaturalism. That doc- 
trine moves you as a scientific certainty, and you 
find that the more closely you clasp it to your bosom 
the more heartily are you in accord with the most 
advanced thought of the British Islands at this hour. 
(See " Sartor Resartus," chapter entitled " Natural 
Supernaturalism.") 

6. In its most brilliant portions, advanced thought 
in England is substantially a unit in the support of 
Christian theism, or ethical supernaturalism. 

Fichte wrote in his maturity, *' Every man must 
die to sin and lead a new life, and this must be done 
as the act of his own moral freedom ; yet it can be 
done only by looking for aid to Christ, the source of 
a new life. Through Him must enter all who ever 
come into the kingdom of heaven." (See " German 
Culture and Christianity," by Joseph Gostwick, 
London, 1882, p. 203.) Natural supernaturalism is 
not Christianity. Carlyle was a pupil of Fichte, but 



42 OCCIDENT. 

he followed Fichte only half-way. In his maturest 
period, Fichte taught that the Gospel of John is the 
profoundest philosophy known to man. Carlyle never 
reached that height, I fear. Son of the Scotch Cov- 
enanters, Carlyle followed Fichte as much as he was 
capable of following any one, until he was not a little 
misled by Goethe. It is not fair to call him an oppo- 
nent of Christianity. I found that scores among those 
who knew him best appreciated the Christian side of 
his character much more thoroughly than his rational- 
istic biographer, Mr. Froude, does. His best friends 
in Edinburgh call him substantially Christian. I 
have heard Mr. Spurgeon say, " Thomas Carlyle was 
a good Old Testament Christian. I wish he had 
been a better New Testament one ; but in this age 
we need a larger number of Old Testament Chris- 
tians." Natural supernaturalism, ethical supernat- 
uralism, God in nature, God in conscience, you 
find among the doctrines held by English advanced 
thought, in the name of the scientific method. With 
Carlyle these doctrines were not a creed only, but a 
life. 

Blessed are your memories of your eager visits 
to tidy but poor Ecclefechan, and to lonely but sub- 
lime Craigenputtock. Carlyle's letters to his mother 
are the best revelation of his religious life. He wrote 
to his mother again and again that fundamentally 
their views in religion were not only in general har- 
mony, but " completely the same." Carlyle was hyp- 
ocritical in these assurances to a parent whom he 
idolized, if he was, as Froude would have the world 
believe, a thorough-going skeptic as to the biblical 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 43 

miracles. After his fatlier's death, Carlyle urged his 
brothers to keep up family worship in his mother's 
house and their own. This was far from honest or 
earnest action if Carlyle was an anti-supernaturalist. 
His greatest doctrine was natural supernaturalism, 
or the Divine Omnipresence in all the natural laws 
of both matter and mind. This was the open secret 
which made the universe to him a Burning Bush, and 
every commonest path of life holy ground. I care 
little for Carlyle's political doctrines, which Froude 
thinks were his chief message to men. Carlyle him- 
self says that his great message was natural super- 
naturalism. Nowhere in his authorized publications 
has he opposed biblical supernaturalism. If he op- 
posed this in private, he took great pains to conceal 
his convictions not only from his mother, but also 
from his contemporaries and posterity. If he held 
the superficial views which Froude attributes to him 
as to the origin of Christianity, he never supported 
them by any reasons that would bear an instant's 
examination in face of the great scholars in Ger- 
many, England, and America, who have answered 
and buried the mythical theory of Strauss and the 
legendary of Renan. It was very unfortunate that 
when Carlyle was in the University at Edinburgh 
no powerful mind was at the front there in either the 
domain of philosophy or in that of theology. There 
is little or no evidence that Carlyle ever mastered 
the higher forms of thought in these departments. 
It would not be surprising if the truth should turn 
out to be that beyond a mystical, spiritualistic, and 
perhaps one may say a Christian theism, his views 



44 OCCIDENT. 

were characterized by uncertainty and obscurity, if 
not confusion. The writings he has published do 
not show that his convictions had hardened into those 
of anti - supernaturalistic rationalism. If they had 
done so, he was evasive, cowardly, and hypocritical 
in not professing before the world his true position. 
It cannot be made clear that Carlyle was evasive, 
or cowardly, or hypocritical, in this or in any other 
matter. 

Carlyle's character seems never to have quite 
reached that overawing spiritual maturity which ap- 
peared, with some blemishes, in Milton and Crom- 
well, Knox and Luther, whom he has himseK eulo- 
gized as among the greatest of modern men, and 
whose natures were as strong and stormy as his own. 
Goethe was, unfortunately, at first, Carlyle's evan- 
gelist ; and yet Goethe, in his old age, cannot be de- 
scribed as an anti-super naturalist. Philosophy and 
theology have passed beyond Goethe ; but Carlyle 
hardly passed beyond him, and so the ages will in- 
evitably in many things leave Carlyle behind. A 
scientific ethical supernaturalism is or will 3^et be 
beyond them both. The characters which Goethe 
and Carlyle achieved, or inculcated, are neither as 
beautiful nor as sublime as those which are in har- 
mony with distinctively Christian ideals. 

7. Historical supernaturalism, or a scientific treat- 
ment of the origin of Christianity, with enlarged 
attention to biblical criticism in all its branches, 
is a foremost part of British advanced thought. 

8. The study of comparative religion, especially 
of the least corrupt of the Oriental faiths, with 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 45 

their literature of all kinds, is pursued with enthusi- 
asm by advanced thought in the British University 
centres. 

9. The might of biblical preaching in the best 
Scottish and English pulpits, the superb vigor of the 
greatest of the London churches, like Mr. Spurgeon's, 
Dr. Allon's, Dr. Parker's, Dr. Dyke's, and the im- 
mense audiences of Westminster Abbey and St. 
Paul's, are exhibitions of British advanced thought 
in forms at once conservative and progressive. 

10. In British religious and ecclesiastical affairs, 
advanced thought plainly tends toward the complete 
separation of church and state, and a growing union 
of all churches of scholarly and aggressive faith. 

11. A profound interest in missions throughout the 
whole earth is characteristic of the ripest religious 
thought in the foremost Christian empire of the 
world. 

12. A growing zeal for international reform, or 
the application of the moral law to the conduct of 
people toward people, and to the reformation of the 
whole world, is a trait of advanced political thought 
in Great Britain. Mr. Bright lately resigned his 
place in a haughty British cabinet because the moral 
law, as he thought, was not followed in England's 
conduct toward Egypt. 

Whatever is heard in the lowlands and the marshes 
Ox English life, these and others like them are the 
footsteps, the heavy fall of which you hear every 
time you ascend to tlie sunlit heights where advanced 
thought in the British Islands loves to pace to and 
fro. 



46 OCCIDENT. 

Among obstacles to the practical application and 
the progress of British advanced thought, you can- 
not fail to notice, — 

1. An insufficient degree of thoroughness in theo- 
logical education in the Established Church and in 
non-conformist bodies generally in England. 

2. Reverence for artificial rather than for natural 
rank. 

3. The industrial and social condition of large 
portions of the operative and agricultural classes. 

4. Roman Catholicism in Ireland. 

5. The connection of church and State. 

6. Sectarian rivalries and jealousies. 

7. English distaste for the higher departments of 
metaphysics. 

8. The superficiality of organized infidelity. 

9. The crowding of the populations of great cities.. 

10. The failure of the churches to reach with ad- 
equate religious instruction a large portion of the 
masses in the lower orders of society. 

On the Irish Sea, and in the country-side as you 
pass to and fro between Dublin and Belfast, and 
among the factories of sooty Birmingham, Manches- 
ter, Leeds, and Sheffield, as well as in the parlors of 
London, you reflect silently and long, but here and 
now we need not dwell, on these vast but slowly 
vanishing evils. 

Scotland has by no means given up her faith in 
the Old Testament, although she would like to see 
it examined with the scalpel and microscope. You 
converse with Robertson Smith, a man little taller 
than this chair, but mighty, — 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ENGLAND. 47 

"If I could reach from pole to pole, 
I 'd yet be measured by my soul; " 

hardly tlie man, however, to lead the Scotch Free 
Church. You are not very sorry, if your opinions 
are what mine are, that he was dropped from his pro- 
fessor's chair ; but you would be pained if he should 
cease to publish. You would be grieved if his inves- 
tigations were curbed in any way. He is a distant 
and yet real follower of Wellhausen and Kuenen ; 
but these men are not regarded in Germany as by 
any means safe leaders of the most advanced Old 
Testament criticism. 

Scotland you learn to love passionately. You pace 
to and fro in the Covenanters' burial-ground; you 
walk over the fields made classic by Burns and Scott ; 
you look abroad from Scottish heights upon many a 
landscape in which no hill rears its head unsung. 
You come into close sympathy with her reformers, 
her orators, her poets, her statesmen. You find the 
whole heaven of the inner sky in Scotland studded 
with sacred stars. You receive an inspiration every 
time you touch but the hem of the garment of the 
most heroic portions of Scottish religious history. 
You love England; and when, at last, you bid adieu 
to the British Islands, and look back upon them, 
what figure is it that best summarizes the advanced 
thought, the advanced philanthropy, the loftiest mood 
of the real heart of the leading political power of 
the world ? Mrs. Browning, Shakespeare's daughter, 
— I think of her as the best symbol of the choicest 
part of Britain. In her grand Christian convictions, 
her mighty aspirations for progress, her love of the 



48 OCCIDENT. 

poor ; her spiritual tenderness, born of Christianity ; 
her mental aggressiveness, born of science ; her wom- 
anliness, — I had almost said her manliness, — I will 
say her heroic readiness to follow God whithersoever 
He may lead: this woman, with Tennyson at her side, 
is really the best representative I can name of what 
appears to me to be the innermost heart of England 
and Scotland. 



II. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY, 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

DOES DEATH END PROBATION? 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SECOND LECTURE IN THE 
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 
TREMONT TEMPLE, JANUARY 15, 1883. 



" While we are upon earth, let us repent. For we are as clay in the 
hands of the potter, ... As long as we are in this world we may 
repent with our whole heart of the evil things we have done in the 
flesh, in order that we may be saved by the Lord, while we yet have 
an opportunity of repentance. For after that we have passed out of 
the world, we shall no longer have it in our power to confess or to 
repent." — Second Epistle of Clemens Eomanus, ^rsf half of 
second century. 

" This passage conclusively proves what those Christians thought 
and taught on the subject of human probation and the doom of the 
ungodly, who lived in the generation immediately succeeding the 
Apostles, and when there were probably those upon earth who had 
seen St. John. The possible refashioning of character during life, 
and its hopeless condition when life has expired, could not be more 
forcibly illustrated than by the image of the potter's vessel." — Dean 
GouLBURN, Lectures, 1880, p. 34. 



" Life, love, religion, these three are one. Tell me what you love 
supremely, and I will tell you your destiny. Our philosophy and our 
morality must lead us at last to one thought — the idea of God." — 
Fichte. 

*' After forty years of philosophical scepticism, eclecticism, and 
chaos, the cry : ' Keturn to Kant,' resounds throughout the land. . . . 
Hegel's imperial sway is at an end. ... Of recent philosophies, that 
of Lotze has most points of contact with theology. His idealism 
serves as an antidote to materialism ; he makes the ethical element 
the heart of his system. Like Aristotle he cannot think of the uni- 
verse otherwise than as controlled by reason, and therefore as em- 
bodying design and intended to accomplish purpose. . . . Spencer's 
svnthetic philosophy seems to have gained little influence ; it is too 
shallow as a philosophy, too hasty in its conclusions, and too full of 
contradictious for the German mind." — Professor J. H. W. Stuck- 
ENBBRG, Berlin. 



PRELUDE II. 

DOES DEATH END PEOBATION ? 

Evil steadfastness of character is as much a fact 
as holy steadfastness. Under irreversible natural 
law, character, without loss of freedom, tends to an 
ultimate steadfastness, final permanence, unchanging 
bent, good or bad. Probation lasts until such stead- 
fastness is attained. It is self-evident that ultimate 
steadfastness, final permanence, or unchanging bent, 
can be attained but once. There is, therefore, no 
second probation. 

However awful the truth, it is scientifically known 
that sinning against light blinds us to the very illu- 
mination needed to rectify our condition. William 
Shakespeare, through one of his characters, exhorts 
a certain other character to repentance; but seems 
to doubt whether repentance is possible. The pas- 
sage is not partisan authority, but it shows how per- 
manent unwillingness to repent may arise under 

natural law. 

" Let me wring your heart, . . . 
If it be made of penetrable stuff, 
If cursed custom have not brazed it so 
That it is proof and bulwark against sense." 

Hamlet, Act HI., Scene IV. 

The natural laws by which judicial blindness comes 
to the soul are God's laws. They reveal his right- 



62 OCCIDENT. 

eous judgment here. He does blind all who sin 
against light. He does this who is infinite in holi- 
ness and tenderness. 

"Repeated sin impairs the judgment. 

He whose judgment is impaired sins repeatedly." 

Bhagvat Geeta. 

When the blinded soul drifts into permanent dissim- 
ilarity of feeling with God, it drifts into perdition. 
As a great American theologian has said, "There 
is as much proof that the evil will persist in their 
choice as that the good will persist in theirs." As 
Julius Miiller has said, " Such is the constitution of 
things that unwillingness to goodness may ripen into 
eternal voluntary opposition to it." This is un- 
doubtedly one of the most terrible truths of the uni- 
verse ; but it is also one of the most indisputable. 

Discussing the question, Does death end proba- 
tion? first practically, next theoretically, and then 
exegetically, I am to maintain three propositions : — 

1. If it be possible that death may end probation, 
the supreme dictate of practical wisdom is to repent 
now. 

2. Mere reason shows that death may end pro- 
bation. 

3. The Scriptures show that death does end proba- 
tion. 

What have we to do, as practical people, with the 
seductive promise that those who do not have a fair 
chance here may, possibly, have another chance 
hereafter? I want a fact, not a hypothesis, as my 
support in the dark waters which separate this world 
from the next. The longer we live in the love of 



DOES DEATH END PEOBATION ? 53 

what God hates and in the hate of what God loves, 
the longer we are likely to do so. An ultimate stead- 
fastness of character may no doubt be sometimes 
reached even in the present life. My conscience dic- 
tates repentance at this instant, and so does all prac- 
tical wisdom. If we are not sure — and no man is 
sure — that there is an opportunity after death for 
repentance, and sure that we can use it in our own 
cases to advantage, it remains true that now is the 
accepted time and now the day of salvation for us. 
So obvious, so commonplace, is this proposition that 
the very sound of it is offensive, perhaps; never- 
theless, propositions become commonplace by being 
often repeated on account of their wisdom. The 
commonplace, in this matter, is the supremely philo- 
sophical proposition. 

Governor Corwin, of Ohio, once met a negro, who 
had run away from Kentucky, and was living in rags 
in the free state. " You made a mistake in running 
away," said the Governor to the black man. " You 
had friends and clothes and money enough south of 
the Ohio, as I happen to know ; for I was acquainted 
with your master. Are you not now in need of all 
these things?" "Yes," said the negro. "Then," 
said the Governor, " you made a mistake in running 
away." " Governor Corwin," said the negro, " the 
situation in Kentucky is open, with all its advan- 
tages [laughter], and if you choose to go and occupy 
it you can do so." [Laughter and applause.] I 
turn to any foremost representative of the doctrine 
that there is an opportunity of repentance after 
death, and I say, The situation is open, with all its 



54 OCCIDENT. 

advantages; do you propose to go and occupy it? 
Not you, not I, in our senses. Do you propose to 
recommend to any one near and dear to you that he 
or she shall go and occupy this opportunity, with all 
its advantages ? Not you, not I, while we retain 
sound minds. Henry Clay was once taunted by Cal- 
houn in the American Senate with defeat in debate. 
"I had him on his back," said Calhoun of the Ken- 
tucky Senator. "I was his master." Henry Clay 
walked down the aisle of the Senate Chamber, and 
shook his long forefinger toward Calhoun, and said, 
" He my master ! He my master ! Sir, I would not 
own him as a slave 1 " Looking at this whole mat- 
ter practically, from the point of view of sound com- 
mon sense, I say to any advocate of the doctrine that 
there is opportunity of repentance after death, " He 
my master ! Neither in life nor in death would I 
own that theory or any one of its defenders as a 
slave ! " 

Passing now swiftly to the philosophical consider- 
ation of the question, Does death end probation? I 
summarize my views in a series of propositions, 
which might easily be expanded into volumes. 

1. Whatever fixes character ends probation. 

2. By fixation of character is meant not the loss 
of freedom of will, but its acquisition of an ultimate 
steadfastness and unchanging bent. 

3. Character tends to ultimate steadfastness, good 
or bad, under the irreversible natural laws of the 
self-propagating power of habit. 

4. It is indisputable that sinning against light 
hardens the soul, and blinds it to the very illumina- 
tion needed to rectify its condition. 



DOES DEATH END PROBATION? 55 

5. It is demonstrable, therefore, from principles of 
reason that character will once and but once attain 
a final permanence, good or bad. 

6. Reason alone, however, does not decide when 
and where this final permanence is reached. 

7. Nevertheless, reason alone makes it appear pos- 
sible, and in many cases highly probable, that a final 
permanence of character is attained and probation 
closed in the unspeakably solemn spiritual experi- 
ences which usually accompany death. 

8. In death, considered merely as a physical change, 
there is nothing to effect a fixation of character ; but 
in death, considered as an event, producing, in most 
cases, an almost preternatural arousal of conscience, 
and sometimes bringing new light from the invisible 
world and requiring a decision for or against it, there 
is much to make it highly probable that death, or 
the moral choice made in death, determines the per- 
manent bent of the soul. 

9. All moral decisions during life tend to fix char- 
acter, and some great moral decisions during life are 
crucial. They may be instantaneous ; but they go 
so far toward fixing character as to be the rudder of 
the soul's whole subsequent career. 

10. Death in average cases is a profound spirit- 
ual experience, and involves a great decision for or 
against the truths it emphasizes and reveals. Under 
the natural laws of the soul, this decision may be 
crucial, and become the rudder of all eternity. 

11. Death is the separation of the soul from the 
body. 

12. Death is not over until the separation of the 



56 OCCIDENT. 

soul from the body is complete. Death does not end 
until the life of the soul completely outside the body 
begins. 

13. It is in the highest degree probable to reason, 
from the observed experiences of the dying, that, 
however torpid body and mind may be in many ap- 
proaches to death, the soul, in the very article of 
death, is often awakened, and receives, as if from an 
invisible world, an illumination unknown to it be- 
fore. 

14. Even in sudden deaths, as thousands of well- 
attested experiences show, an instant may be enough 
to bring before the soul the record of its whole life, 
and involve moral decisions of the most stupendous 
import. It is notorious that this is the experience 
of the drowning. It is not difficult for me to be- 
lieve that heaven or hell may be opened in the soul 
simply by the sudden, complete, and vivid unveiling 
of its records to its own eyes. In being once myself 
thrown in a sleeping-coach on a swift railway train 
twenty feet down a rocky bank, and expecting in- 
stant death, I found between the brink and the bot- 
tom my whole life passing before me in panorama, 
and the chambers of memory and conscience illu- 
minated, as if a torch had suddenly been lighted in- 
side of the brain. 

15. But it is not to be presumed that, in average 
cases, the separation of soul and body is instanta- 
neous. 

16. Much before that separation^ whether rapid or 
otherwise^ is complete^ the light of eternity may have 
dawned upon the soul. Whether in the body or out 



DOES DEATH END PROBATION? 57 

of the body, God knoweth, Paul, the Apostle, was 
caught up to the seventh heaven, and heard unspeak- 
able things which it is not lawful for man to utter. 
The soul, before it is separate from the body, may 
very probably hear unspeakable things. 

17. Accepting or rejecting this great new light 
ma.y very probably fix the soul's character under 
natural law. If the soul rejects the new light re- 
ceived in death, the hardening and blinding of the 
soul under natural law may be such as to be final. 
Whoever resists the great new light which comes in 
death commits very probably the unpardonable sin, 
which hath forgiveness neither in this world nor in 
the next. Whoever goes through death with his 
teeth set against God may never open them. 

18. Whoever resists the light received in death is 
likely to resist the first light received after death ; 
and so moral obduracy in death may become final 
permanence of evil character after death ; and thus, 
under the fixed natural laws of the will, death may 
become doom. 

19. It is impossible in fairness to turn these prop- 
ositions about and use them as an encouragement 
for a death -bed repentance. Those who persist in 
sin until the last, and depend on the seriousness of 
death and the light it emphasizes or reveals to con- 
vert them, are precisely those who are the least likely 
to yield to light and experience God's mercy at the 
supreme hour. Postponed obedience is disobedience 
and tends to perpetuate itself. They who put off 
repentance until death are the most in danger of 
postponing it forever. 



68 OCCIDENT. 

20. In those who have all their lives struggled 
toward the light, the seriousness of death may pro- 
duce moral victory. In death may be exhibited 
the terrific truth of the words that " to him who 
hath shall be given abundantly, and from him 
who hath not shall be taken away even that which 
he hath." 

21. In infants who have never sinned, the light of 
expanding faculties at death and the sight of Christ's 
face may lead at once to moral harmony with Him. 

Pere Ravignan, in language before me, says : " In 
the soul, at the last moment of its passage, on the 
threshold of eternity, there occur, doubtless, divine 
mysteries of justice, but, above all, of mercy and 
love." Please God, it may be so. There is proba- 
tion in life, there is probation in death, and to the 
very end of death. Dr. Pusey, replying to Canon 
Farrar, says : " What God does for the soul, when 
the eye is turned up in death and shrouded, the 
frame stiffened, every limb motionless, every power 
of expression gone, is one of the secrets of the divine 
compassion." 

I believe in a physical body, a spiritual body, and a 
soul. Death, as I conceive of it, is not disembodi- 
ment from the spiritual organism. There are forms 
of death which possibly may separate spirit and spir- 
itual body from the physical body instantaneously ; 
but in ordinary death I believe it is not safe to as- 
sert that this is the case. Death is not over and pro- 
bation has not ceased till the soul is separated from 
the body ; and the mighty light which comes in the 
last and highest moment of spiritual experience be- 



DOES DEATH END PEOBATION ? 59 

fore death ends may have been enough to bring 
many a man who gave no visible sign of repentance 
into loyalty to God. I hardly dare hope this, how- 
ever ; for, as Canon Farrar himself says, " There is, 
in all the Bible, recorded but one example of effect- 
ive death-bed repentance, — that of the thief on the 
cross, — one example that we might not despair, one 
only that we might not presume." But if this light 
be resisted, if this unutterable series of voices from 
the seventh heaven meet only moral obduracy on the 
part of the passing soul, I think it highly probable, 
under merely natural law, that this moral obduracy 
may carry with it such hardening and such blinding 
of the spirit as to be permanent. 

I did not make the universe ; but the universe is 
so made that whoever sins against light draws blood 
on the spiritual retina of the moral eyes. It is the 
most mysterious thing in the penalties the soul is 
called on to endure, that sinning against light blinds 
us to the very illumination needed to rectify our 
condition. That is a fact of science ; that is a ter- 
rific philosophical truth which cannot be declaimed 
out of sight ; that is a tremendous, indisputable cir- 
cumstance in natural law; and on it I plant myself 
when I say reason shows that resisting the light that 
comes in death may fix character and so end pro- 
bation. 

To enter now upon the very centre of my theme, 
I beg leave to read twelve passages which I have 
selected most carefully from Holy Scripture, as af- 
firming, directly or indirectly, that death does end 
probation. I am quite aware that this is a topic 



60 OCCIDENT. 

wliicli for centuries has had the most elaborate dis- 
cussion, and that on this theme it is wholly impossible 
to say anything new ; but, if a man speaks from the 
depths of his own convictions, he is likely to touch 
some one who has had an experience similar to his 
own, and all I attempt now- is to put before you 
what convinces me. Many a rationalist has rejected 
the Bible as of divine authority, and given, as one of 
his reasons for doing so, that it teaches that death 
does end probation, and that the state of character 
into which the soul drifts through the moral choice 
made at death is permanent. 

1. " We must all appear before the judgment seat 
of Christ, that every one may receive the things 
done in his hody^ (2 Cor. v. 10.) 

Compare this passage with the statement in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew concerning the last 
judgment, and you will see that the things for w^hich 
men are commended or blamed before the great 
White Throne are things which they could do only in 
the body. I cannot explain away this definite state- 
ment that we are to stand before the judgment seat 
at the last great day, and every one of us receive the 
things done in his body, — not the things done in 
the intermediate state. 

Character may grow worse after death, or better, 
its bent remaining what it was at death ; and yet 
it is the teaching of Revelation, as the acutest and 
saintliest of its students have read it age after age, 
that the issues of the final judgment are determined 
by the deeds done in the body. 

How much can orthodoxy grant to those who hold 



DOES DEATH END PROBATION? 61 

the doctrine of the intermediate state ? In the de- 
bate in England with Canon Farrar, it has been 
granted by standard Anglican authorities that there 
may be four places in the universe to which souls go, 
— Tartarus and Gehenna on the left, Paradise and 
Heaven on the right. But between those two pairs 
of places there is a great gulf fixed. It may be, so 
Anglican orthodoxy concedes, that some souls are so 
imperfect at death that they need a prolonged prep- 
aration for heaven. Their doom is fixed by their 
predominant choice at death, nevertheless they are 
not ready for the highest mansions in their Father's 
house ; and it is therefore possible that in a paradise, 
considered as the vestibule of heaven, they may be 
kept under education to the last great day. Just so, 
if the predominant choice of a man at death is evil, 
if he rejects God, he may not go at once to the deep- 
est of the pits of woe ; he may go into gehenna, but 
there, it being impossible for the good to visit him 
from the other side, he will have only evil compan- 
ionship, and it is to be presumed, in view of what we 
know of the natural laws of the soul, this his char- 
acter will deteriorate. His predominant choice has 
been evil, free, but fixed in malignant opposition to 
God ; and so through the vestibule he will pass into 
the central chambers kept for those who have at- 
tained permanence of evil character. Canon Farrar 
says that, if you grant him as much as this, even if 
you deny that there is any passing from side to side 
of this gulf, he is satisfied. You think Canon Farrar 
asks for much more than that. In lansiuao'e which I 
hold before me in his latest book on this theme, his 



62 OCCIDENT. 

" Mercy and Judgment '■ (pp. 157, 158, American 
edition). Canon Farrar says, " Dr. Pusey would, I 
suppose, say that an irreversible doom is passed " in 
death by every soul, " but that the doom may be to 
a terminable and purifying punishment, — a view 
which does not differ very materially from my own." 
God's mercy may reach us after death, " in the form, 
if not of probation (for on that subject I have never 
dogmatized), yet of preparation." Canon Farrar, in 
his summary of his faith given at the end of this vol- 
ume, says only, " I believe that, hereafter, whether 
by means of the almost sacrament of death, or in 
other ways unknown to us, God's mercy may reach 
many who to all earthly appearance [but only to all 
appearance] might seem [but only seem] to us to 
die in a lost and unregenerated state." (P. 483.) 

Anglican orthodoxy, without protest, has allowed 
high authorities to teach that there is an interme- 
diate state, Hades, including both Gehenna and Par- 
adise, but with an impassable gulf between the two. 
I do not say that New England orthodoxy is satisfied 
with this mapping out of the region beyond death. 
Personally it seems to me that those who make this 
map assume to know more than the Scriptures re- 
veal. I do not care to have the region beyond death 
charted like a continent on this planet. I ask you 
to notice carefully that Dr. Pusey's position (see his 
volume entitled '' What is of Faith ? "), which Canon 
Farrar at this vital point accepts for substance of 
doctrine, is not equivalent at all to what is called 
the new departure, under the leadership of Profes- 
sor Dorner and his American followers. Dorner he- 



DOES DEATH EKD PROBATION? 63 

lieves that the great gulf is not fixed ; hut Canon Far- 
rar^ if you grant him a preparation for the ivorst or 
for the best, will admit that the gulf between these two 
kinds of preparation is fixed. He is forced to do 
this by the exegetical arguments of Anglican ortho- 
doxy. Do not forget the large historic fact, that, 
on this point, Christendom is agreed, — the Greek 
Church, the Roman Church, the Anglican Church, 
the Non-Conformist Church, the American Evan- 
gelical Church. There is hardly a point on which 
such substantial exegetical concord has been reached 
age after age as on this matter. You think the 
new departure has been led in England by Canon 
Farrar. There has been a new departure on a num- 
ber of points, but the breadth of it has been im- 
mensely exaggerated. Canon Farrar is sometimes 
a loose writer, and the tendency of his books is to 
carry incautious readers further toward Universal- 
ism than the author has gone himself. His last 
book is much more moderate in tone than his first. 
It is not generally knoT\ii that, while Canon Farrar 
agrees with Dr. Pusey in assertmg that there may be 
in the intermediate state a preparation of souls for 
the best or the Avorst, he agrees with him also in 
asserting that we have no right to feel sure at all 
that there is a state of ^jrobation there. Every un- 
converted man is in a state of dissimilarity of feeling 
with God, and this, without supernatural agency, 
will be permanent except as it may grow worse. 
But nothing in Scripture extends beyond this life 
the offer of salvation by such supernatural agency. 
2. " The Lord knoweth how to keep the unrighteous 



64 OCCIDENT. 

under punishment unto the day of judgment.'''' (2 
Pet. ii. 9.) 

You affirm that our Lord preached to spirits in 
prison. On the passage to which you now direct 
my attention (1 Peter iii. 18-21 and iv. 6) whole 
libraries have been written, and scholars do not 
agree yet. Are you to found a pyramid upon its 
apex? Are you to build a whole new theology on 
a disputed obscure passage? What if I were to 
grant you that our Lord went and preached in one 
case to spirits in the intermediate state between 
death and the day of general judgment ; are you to 
draw from this fact alone such stupendous inferences 
as Dorner does? The notorious truth is that this 
passage concerning the preaching to spirits in prison 
has often been interpreted by scholars of the very 
highest rank as referring not to preaching to the 
spirits of the dead at all, but simply to those '■' who 
some time were disobedient," on earth, " when the 
long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noa.h." 
You wish me to come to close quarters with this 
celebrated passage ? My conviction concerning it is 
that Peter is to be explained by Peter. The famous 
passage in First Peter is to be read in the light of a 
passage that is not often emphasized, but which 
ought to be pushed to the front in Second Peter. I 
read here, in the revised version of Second Peter, 
second chapter, verses 4 to 10, that " God spared 
not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to 
hell and committed them to pits of darkness, to be 
reserved unto judgment." He " spared not the an- 
cient world, but preserved Noah, with seven others, 



DOES DEATH END PROBATION? Q3 

a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood 
upon the world of the ungodly." From these and 
other great historic facts here recited, the Apostle 
draws the stujDendous inference that " the Lord know- 
etli how to deliver the godly out of temptation and 
to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the 
day of judgment r With all respect to exegetical 
scholars, it must be affirmed that consistency of 
meaning is the supreme law of the interpretation of 
any passage, sacred or secular. Peter must be in- 
terpreted as consistent with Peter himself. In this 
second chapter he does assert that God spared not 
the ancient world, and that the Lord knoweth how 
to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the 
day of judgment. How do you reconcile that dis- 
tinct statement with your idea that these very peo- 
ple of the ancient world, after they had gone into 
an intermediate state, heard our Lord preach, and 
that his preaching was effectual for their salvation ? 
I assail this passage, as a recent writer in the " Bib- 
liotheca Sacra" (the Rev. W. H. Cobb in the num- 
ber for October, 1882, p. 770) has done, from the 
rear. I use Peter to explain Peter. What sense is 
there in such reasoning as this? God spared not 
the ancient world while its inhabitants were on the 
earth, but sent Christ to preach to the sjDirits of 
the inhabitants of the ancient world after they had 
gone into the intermediate state, and there caused 
them to be converted ; therefore^ the Lord knoweth 
how to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto 
the day of judgment I Such interpretation intro- 
duces the most palpable self-contradiction into the 



66 OCCIDENT. 

Holy Word. It is difficult to avoid intellectual chaos 
in our interpretation of Scripture, if we adopt, in all 
its necessary logical ramifications, the idea that there 
was preaching in the intermediate state, and that it 
was effective to the conversion of souls lost until the 
preaching occurred. 

I will not affirm that the second of the three 
famous passages in Peter does not refer to preaching 
to the dead : but I must interpret even that passage 
in consistency with this definite statement that the 
Lord knoweth how to keep the unrighteous under 
punishment unto the day of judgment. The pas- 
sage does not refer to the most iniquitous only. The 
most iniquitous are singled out afterward. The lan- 
guage plainly applies to all those who died unpar- 
doned. Dean Alford uses substantially the same 
language in his translation of this passage which the 
Revised Edition does. I know that Dean Alford de- 
fends the doctrine that there was preaching to souls 
in the intermediate state ; but he is not the only 
commentator in the world. You can cite fifty com- 
mentators on your side of the case, and I can cite 
fifty on the other side. Individual opinion amounts 
to nothing on this question. We must strike a bal- 
ance of whole libraries ; but the fact after all is that 
whole libraries have not settled the matter. Do you 
expect to obtain public confidence by standing on 
a quaking, exegetical bog ? This passage is confess- 
edly obscure, and it is so apart from the general 
drift of revelation that we have no right to plant 
upon it dogmatic assertions contrary to the plain 
meaning of passages which are clear. One text must 



DOES DEATH END PEOBATION ? 67 

not be allowed to check the flow of the whole central 
current of Scripture. It is the business of every lay- 
man to have an opinion on this matter and to search 
the Holy Word for himself. I commend the Second 
Epistle of Peter to the attention of any man who has 
been misled by previous passages in First Epistle of 
this Apostle as they have been interpreted by mod- 
ern scholarship, or the lack of it. 

Even if you think it prudent to deny the genuine- 
ness or canonical authority of Second Peter, you 
must yet admit that this document was in existence 
and circulation at a very early date in the Apostolic 
Church, and that it shows, therefore, how those to 
whom it was addressed understood the topic of the 
preaching to spirits in prison. 

3. " Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed^ 
so that they who would pass from hence to you can- 
not; neither can they pass to us that would come 
from thence." (Luke xvi. 26.) 

I am quite aware that it is affirmed that, although 
it is said no one could go from Abraham's bosom 
across this gulf, perhaps one might go from God's 
bosom. But why frighten us with this tremendous 
statement concerning the gulf fixed, if, in the dark- 
ness beyond this vista, there is such a noon of light 
as that God himself is to preach in the intermediate 
state ? 

I believe that light is kept before the lost. I be- 
lieve that God will be all in all, both in the saved 
and in the lost, and that the fact that God is all in 
all in a lost soul is the chief source of its misery. 
There seems to me to be no more terrific description 



68 OCCIDENT. 

of perdition than tliat God may be all in all to a soul 
rebellious to Him. 

4. " He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his 
neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without 
remedy^ (Prov. xxix. 1.) 

5. " Whoever shall be ashamed of me and of my 
words in this adulterous and sinful generation^ of him 
also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He com- 
eth in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." 
(Mark viii. 38.) 

6. " Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be 
bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. xvi. 19.) 

7. " Behold, noiv is the accepted time ; behold, noiv 
is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. vi. 2.) 

8. " If we live after the fleshy we must die ; but if 
by the spirit ye mortify the deeds of the hody^ ye shall 
live." (Rom. viii. 13.) 

9. " It is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
this the judgment. ^^ (Hebrews ix. 27.) 

10. " There is no respect of persons with God. 
For as many as have sinned without law shall also 
perish without law : and as many as have sinned in 
the law shall be judged by the law, in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ 
according to my gospel." (Romans ii. 12-16.) 

11. " Ye shall die in your sins. Whither I go ye 
cannot come. Ye are from beneath ; I am from 
above. I said, therefore, unto you that ye shall die 
in your sins ; for if ye believe not that I am He, ye 
shall die in your sins.'' (John viii. 21-24.) 

Three times that phrase repeated! Three times 



DOES DEATH END PBOBATION? 69 

in a hand's-breadtli of one chapter of the gospels onr 
Lord himself uses language which I can interpret 
only as implying that death is a finality. 

The new departure is not found in the gospels. 
The doctrine that there is opportunity of repentance 
after death did not proceed from the lips of Omnis- 
cience in the person of our Lord. The decisive fact, 
as Professor Park has said, — and let nobody think 
the word of Csesar will not yet stand against the 
world ! [hearty applause], — is that He who was the 
perfection of mercy and of knowledge. He who gave 
his life for mankind. He who represents all the 
heights of the Divine love, never taught the doc- 
trine of repentance after death. " The God-man, 
who came for the purpose of seeking and saving the 
lost, has taught more imperatively than any other 
one that men who are lost when they die are lost 
forever." (Prof. E. A. Park, " Discourse at the In- 
stallation of the Rev. Horace H. Leavitt," p. 30.) 

" I say unto you, my friends. Be not afraid of them 
that kill the body, and after that, have no more that 
they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall 
fear : Fear him, which after he hath killed, hath 
power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you. Fear 
him." (Luke xii. 4, 5.) I want preaching to have 
the biblical tone, and I do not see how it can have 
this with Dorner's eschatology behind it. 

12. " He that is unjust let him be unjust still ; and 
he that is filthy let him be filthy still ; and he that is 
righteous let him be righteous still ; and he that is 
holy let him be holy still. And, behold, I come 
quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every 



70 OCCIDENT. 

man according as his work shall he^ (Rev. xxii. 
11, 12.) 

The implication here, as everywhere, is that we are 
to be judged by the deeds done in the body and under 
the laws by which character tends to ultimate stead- 
fastness, good or bad. 

This topic is so high that I do not care to quote on 
it merely human authority ; but a theological semi- 
nary, which is dear to me as are the ruddy drops that 
visit this sad heart, has been very much misappre- 
hended of late, I fear. I happen to know that, on 
the last Sabbath, of the last year, there was preached 
in the Seminary chapel, at Andover, an elaborate 
discourse by the professor, of the relations of Chris- 
tianity and science. Dr. Gulliver, of w^hich this was 
the central proposition : " The Bible contains, on 
any fair interpretation, not a suggestion nor a word 
extending the offer of salvation beyond this world." 
("Golden Rule," January 13, 1883.) I protest 
against the exaggerations of a partisan religious 
press, representing opinions unfriendly to orthodoxy 
and greatly magnifying the present breadth of what 
is called the new departure. I endeavor to believe 
that, with the possible exception of a single pro- 
fessor, the history of the new departure in Andover 
Theological Seminary, as it now stands, might be 
written as the history of the serpents in Ireland was, 
in the famous chapter, consisting of a single sen- 
tence : There are no serpents in Ireland. [Laugh- 
ter.] There is no new departure. [Loud applause.] 

Almighty God is undoubtedly h.ere ; and I would 
have this discussion conducted as if on our knees and 



DOES DEATH END PEOBATION ? 71 

without applause. I am a student of the relations of 
the natural laws to religious truth, and I profess to 
you before God that I find the natural laws as stern 
on the topic of punishment after death as the Bible 
itself. Nature is as orthodox as Scripture. There 
are two sides of the Divme natural laws ; they lift 
the good as inevitably as they degrade the bad. 
They are in operation all around us. Every month 
I see men of whom I honestly think the question 
is not whether they are drifting into a final perma- 
nence of evil character, but whether they have not 
already attained it. Of course, it is self-contradic- 
tion to suppose that a final permanence is not final. 
Sometimes an unchanging bent of character is at- 
tained in this world. With these supreme natural 
laws around us, exhibiting their force in our own 
experience and illustrated by all history, philosophy, 
and literature, — by Shakespeare, by Plato, and by 
every great student of the human faculties since 
time began, — how can we conclude that they will 
not operate in the intermediate state? Plato said 
the laws of the next world are brothers to the laws 
of this. To reason from the stupendous separations 
which these laws produce on earth to corresponding 
separations which they will produce in eternity is to 
reason in the only scientific and secure way from the 
known to the unknown. Heaven deliver us from 
teaching propositions hazardous to the souls of men ! 
God prepare us all, by open eyes, by regenerated 
hearts, to go into the next world depending only 
on doctrines which are safe in any event ! [Voices, 
"Amen," "Amen."] 



LECTURE II. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 

If England is our Motherland, Germany is our Fa- 
therland. It must be confessed that in the highest 
matters of philosophy and science Germany now 
leads the world. 

Germany is dear to me, because some moments of 
birth for great intellectual experiences have come to 
me on her soil. At Halle, in the gardens of Tholuck 
and in the lecture-rooms of Julius Miiller and Her- 
mann Ulrici ; at Berlin, in the auditorium of Dor- 
ner, Curtius, Kiepert, Grimm, and Helmholtz, and 
above the graves of Neander, Schleiermacher, and 
Hegel ; at Leipsic, in the audiences of Delitzsch, 
Kahnis, and Luthardt ; at Heidelberg, in the classes 
of Kuno Fischer ; at Bonn, most especially, in con- 
sultation with Lange, or prolonged interviews with 
Christlieb ; at Gottingen, at the burial of Schober- 
lein and Hermann Lotze ; at Weimar, in the haunts 
of Herder, Richter, Schiller, and Goethe, I have re- 
ceived some of the most stimulating personal influ- 
ences to which I can look back in any land. 

The chief signs of the times in regard to ad- 
vanced thought in German theology, as I interpret 
them, are four. 

1. A daring but unmistakable under-current of 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 73 

opinion in favor of the organization of the more 
evangelical portion of the German state churches 
into a free church, with no connection with tbe state. 

2. The downfall of the mythical theory as to the 
New Testament. 

3. Profound studies of the natural religion of con- 
science. 

4. Progressive and yet conservative criticism of 
the Old Testament. 

The torpor of the German state churches is one 
of the causes giving force to the under-current of 
demand in evangelical circles in Germany for a free 
church. The rationalistic preachers who are some- 
times sent dov/n by state bureaus to preach to evan- 
gelical congregations are an offence to the German 
sense of fairness. This acute grievance incites to the 
support of a movement for a free church. What 
would Americans think if government were to ap- 
point preachers over congregations, and if a devout 
assembly were to find itself saddled with a rationalist 
in the pulpit, and not possessed of authority to un- 
seat him ? This is often the experience of really 
evangelical congregations on the Rhine, the Elbe, 
and the Oder. Very little is printed on this sub- 
ject in Germany ; very little is said on this matter, 
except in whispers in private circles ; but you cannot 
be long in association with the leaders of evangelical 
thought in the Fatherland without finding that they 
are making preparation for a change in the organiza- 
tion of the German Church. 

When the present Emperor dies there will come 
to the throne in the German Empire a man of most 



T4 OCCIDENT. 

liberal opinions in theology. The Crown Prince is 
not a rationalist. He should not be regarded as an 
opponent to Christianity ; but he is married to a 
daughter of Queen Victoria, who thinks that any man 
who believes in miracles is either a hypocrite or a 
fool. She was a pupil of Strauss. One of the first 
important remarks I heard, on going to Germany, 
nine years ago, — and the sentence came from no less 
a man than Professor Tholuck, — was that the Crown 
Prince had married a woman of frivolous opinions in 
theology, and that great harm might ultimately come 
to the empire from her being a pupil of Strauss, the 
author of the mythical theory. A similar opinion I 
met often on a recent tour to six of the foremost Ger- 
man cities and universities. It is, of course, not cer- 
tain, but it is probable, that the new court which will 
be organized after the present venerated Emperor 
passes away will not be as favorable to Christianity 
as the present one. Do not think it is the attitude of 
the court which determines the attitude of the Ger- 
man state churches and universities toward evangeli- 
cal Christianity. You are immensely mistaken if you 
fancy that any court has power to lead the intellec- 
tual aristocracy of Germany in the professorships of 
the great Universities. Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit^ 
freedom to teach and freedom to learn, — these are 
rights asserted in Germany in the teeth of any possi- 
ble influence from the court for or against Christian- 
ity. Germany, in the past, has not had any too much 
political liberty, and so she has become more em- 
phatic than perhaps she otherwise would be concern- 
ing the preservation of her intellectual liberties. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 75 

One of the most skeptical periods in modern Ger- 
man history was when there was on the German 
throne a really Christian ruler. It is by no means 
the influence of the present Emperor that has effected 
the recent change in the attitude of theological schol- 
arship toward rationalism. 

It is not to be expected that any large trouble 
will arise from the coming to the German throne of 
a man whose opinions may not quite coincide with 
those of the present Emperor and the present Chan- 
cellor, both of whom are devout Christians. Bis- 
marck has a strange way of showing his mildness 
at times ; nevertheless, these men, in life as well 
as in word, stand unflinchingly forward in support 
of a scholarly and undefiled Christianity. They are 
by no means unable to give good reasons for the 
faith that is in them. What is probable is that, 
when the present Crown Prince comes to supreme 
power, there may be somewhat more freedom al- 
lowed than now to bureaus above the state churches 
in sending down rationalistic preachers to the state 
church congregations. There is an unmistakable 
revival of evangelical religion in several quarters of 
Germany. The German state churches, especially 
the Lutheran, have been petrified; they have been 
very ineffective in preparing young men, in a relig- 
ious way, for the ministry. They are marshes, in 
many cases, and the vapors sent up from them ac- 
count for some very strange things seen through ra- 
tionalistic university telescopes. Nevertheless, evan- 
gelical life has taken such a hold upon these churches, 
in many parts of the empire, that, if the bureaus 



76 OCCIDENT. 

send down rationalistic preachers much longer to 
evangelical congregations, there will be a secession, 
and a free church formed, whoU}^ separate from the 
state. In such an emergenc}^ several evangelical 
teachers and preachers in Germany, now known on 
both sides of the Atlantic, but whom I must not 
name, for I do not wish to implicate them in any of 
these revolutionary agitations, would come to the 
front. A few of these leaders understand well, not 
merely through books, but by travel, the condition 
of Scottish and English and American free churches. 

It has often been my duty to call public attention 
to- the fact that, in the United States in 1800 we 
had one in fifteen of the population inside the evan- 
gelical churches, and that to-day we have one in 
^Ye. Here is the result of a century of sailing over 
the yeasty, foaming sea of a free church in a free 
state, where, as Europe predicted, we w^ere to be 
wrecked. 

Already Australia has adopted the American prec- 
edent for her guidance. She has put all connection 
between church and state into process of extinction 
in all her colonies. I have heard Archbishop Trench 
say, at his own table, to his associate ecclesiastics 
in Dublin, that Ireland could not go back to a 
connection of church and state if she would, and 
would not if she could, and should not if she would. 
Church and state have long been partially sepa- 
rated in Scotland, and you already begin to hear, 
all around the horizon of that land, rising thunders 
on the theme of complete disestablishment. But 
who expects England to avoid radical discussions 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GEEMANY. 77 

on this theme a century, or half a century, or a 
generation, longer? 

Disestablishment is a great reform to be expected 
in a near British future. Non-conformity in England 
is a giant. It asks no favor from the state, and is 
beginning to be above looking for any favor from 
mere rank and title. As I heard a great London 
preacher of a Non-conformist body say : " Other 
things being equal, the Aveight of a man is doubled 
in England by his belonging to the Establishment." 
But it will not be fifty years, as I hope, before such 
a remark cannot be made. 

England is learning to respect Non-conformity. It 
is true that here in America the representatives of 
the same denominations Avho are called Non-conform- 
ists in England stand a little more erect socially than 
some Non-conformists do in Great Britain. I have 
the utmost respect for the representatives of Non-con- 
formit}^ in the British Islands, but I dislike to see 
occasionally in some of them a tendency to take a 
craven and apologetic attitude before the Establish- 
ment. In their great leaders I found no trace of this 
tendency. It seemed to me snobbishness ; and per- 
haps snobbishness is the worst thing in English soci- 
ety. But, on the whole, free churches in England 
and Scotland and America have been so successful 
that German}^ begins to study their system, with the 
view of imitating it by and by. 

If a free church should spring up in Germany and 
be obliged to stand on its own merits or fall, w^e 
should begin to see a new style of German preaching. 
Evangelical zeal reacting through the congregations 



78 OCCIDENT. 

on tlie tlieological lialls, would give us a new type 
of German theology, not merely scholarly, but de- 
vout. I know one great German professor, who for 
years was a pastor m London, and has been a dele- 
gate to the Evangelical Alliance in America, who is, 
perhaps, at this moment the foremost representative 
of the discussion of the Christian evidences in the 
German tongue, and who is in the attitude of a tiger 
ready for a spring. If a secession of evangelical 
churches occurs and a free church is formed in Ger- 
many, he will be the man for the hour. His heart, 
his head, his history, fit him to lead such a blessed 
change in the ecclesiastical arrangements of the Ger- 
man Empire. 

What is advanced thought now inculcating in Ger- 
many as to the historic evidences of Christianity, 
and especially as to the mythical theory of Strauss, 
which gave scholars a considerable amount of trouble 
a few years ago? 

1. It is now admitted by Baui*, Renan, Strauss, 
and all really learned infidels that four of Paul's 
epistles were written before the year 60. These four 
are, Romans, Galatians, and the First and Second to 
the Corinthians. 

2. Paul's four undisputed epistles prove : (1) that 
within twenty-five years of the date assigned to the 
death and resurrection of our Lord numerous Chris- 
tian societies had been established throughout the 
whole extent of the Roman Empire, from Jerusalem 
to Rome itself ; (2) that in these societies there was 
agreement in the reception of the doctrines of our 
present gospels as of divine authority, and of the 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 79 

history recorded in the gosj^els as attested by the 
most irresistible and overwhehning contemporary 
evidence. 

These four epistles alone prove that the creed 
taught by Paul, and received by the Christian soci- 
eties throughout the Roman Empire, before the year 
60, included substantially all that the Christian creed 
of to-day embraces. 

3. Between 34 and 60 A. D. there is not time 
enough in any age, and especially not enough in the 
age of Livy and Tacitus, for myths and legends to 
grow up and obtain acceptance as histories of actual 
fact. 

4. The mythical theory of Strauss, the legendary 
theory of Renan, the tendency theory of Baur, all of 
them applications of a theory of development to the 
explanation of the origin of the New Testament lit- 
erature, are thoroughly confuted and shown to be 
now utterly untenable by serious and educated men. 
(See Bampton Lectures for 1877, by Prebendary 
Row ; also. Prof. Stanley Leathes's lecture in the 
volume entitled " Modern Skepticism," published by 
the London Christian Evidence Society; and also, 
the Rev. Dr. J. Oswald Dykes' article in " Brit, and 
Foreign Ev. Rev.," No. cxi., on " The Witness of St. 
Paul to Jesus Christ.") 

5. The application of the development theory to 
the explanation of the origin of the New Testament 
literature having thus ignominiously failed, it is to be 
presumed that we shall not find in that theory a com- 
plete explanation of the Old Testament literature. 

Young men here, or those no older than your pres- 



80 OCCIDENT. 

ent lecturer, remember wlien the mythical theory of 
Strauss was passing through its haughty, domineer- 
ing period, and was supposed to be something with 
which it was a little dangerous to meddle. I recol- 
lect well that, when I entered Yale College, I was 
seriously advised to read and not to read Strauss's 
book on the life of our Lord. I took it down and 
turned it oyer, obtained possession of the theory, 
and for many years it lay in my mind without an 
adequate answer to it. No adequate answer had 
been given in 1858. Up to that time we were una- 
ble to show the masses of the people just how this 
theory should be confuted, although scholars knew, 
of course, that it was not tenable. I was in a period 
of unrest. I was passing through that transitional 
era in which young men can raise more questions 
than they can answer. Scholars were annoyed by 
this theory, because it was not easy to state to the 
people clearly what the answer to it is. A reply 
presumes considerable knowledge of early recondite 
matters in Christian history, and I am now ventur- 
ing much in trying to condense into a few minutes 
what has been wrought out by the debates of a gen- 
eration. 

It was supposed, a generation or two since, that 
the earliest date to which we can trace back the New 
Testament literature was 180, or thereabouts. The 
date assigned to the Crucifixion and Resurrection was 
not earlier than 30 and not later than 34. Here, 
then, was a gap between the upper and the lower 
blade of a pair of chronological shears. In this open- 
ing between 30 and 180 there was time for myths 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GEEMANY. 81 

and legends to grow up. It was Strauss's theory 
that, between 30 and 180 or 200, exaggerated ac- 
counts of what the founder of Christianity did were 
woven about his idolized memory by his disciples, 
and that these exaggerations were mistaken for his- 
tory. Elaborate illustrations were drawn from the 
growth of myths and legends, in connection with 
heathen religions. A whole science of myths was 
originated, and you have it taught occasionally by 
sufficiently advanced retrograde thinkers in this coun- 
try and in England to this hour. I presume a ram- 
bling carelessness of liberal thought can be found 
even in the city of Boston that will, to-day, stand on 
this system of myths and legends and haughtily re- 
ject the New Testament literature as not containing 
contemporaneous evidence of the reality of the Chris- 
tian miracles. But what has happened in the prog- 
ress of research ? We have now shut these shears 
until the lower blade stands at 60, the upper at 34. 
Even Keim, the ablest of the recent negative critics, 
goes yet further, and says: "We may definitively 
maintain A. D. 35 as the year of Jesus' death." 
(" Jesus of Nazara," vol. vi. p. 244. Eng. Trans., 
1883.) 

Go with me to the Colosseum in Rome, and con- 
vince yourselves that certain leading Christian events, 
eighteen hundred years distant from us, can be per- 
fectly verified to historic conviction. This Colosseum 
is a huge object. It is difficult to get out of sight of 
it in the wide plain of the centuries. When was it 
built ? It was begun in the year 72. Who built it ? 
Jews captured at Jerusalem were the chief workmen 



82 OCCIDENT. 

employed on this structure. When was Jerusalem 
captured ? In the year 70. Who captured it ? 
Titus. How do you know Titus captured Jerusa- 
lem? Across the street, yonder, is an arch erected 
to his memory; and on it, to this day, in beautiful 
relief, you have representations of the golden candle- 
stick and other utensils employed in the Temple. 
Nobody doubts that Titus, in the year 70, captured 
Jerusalem, and that the Jews helped to erect the 
Colosseum. When did Nero die? In the year 68. 
Solid, unmistakable verities these stones and these 
dates ! There are very many events, eighteen hun- 
dred years gone by, of which we are more sure than 
we are as to what happened in the next street in 
the last hour. When did Paul die,? Under Nero. 
Everybody admits that Paul died in the reign of this 
despot, although there is a dispute as to the year ; hut 
he certainly died under Nero, and therefore before 
68. When did Paul write his epistles ? Before he 
died ! 

We know that Paul wrote his epistles, at least the 
four I have named, before Festus succeeded Felix in 
the government of Judea. When did Festus succeed 
Felix ? In 60. Paul was in prison in Csesarea two 
years before Festus succeeded Felix, and he wrote 
these epistles before he was imprisoned ; so we carry 
the date of the oldest of the four up to 58. And for ' 
reasons which I will not enter upon in detail, the 
date of Galatians is now often put at 54. 

Thirty-four, fifty-four, — twenty years only be- 
tween these blades ! There is not time in twenty 
years for myths and legends to grow up and be mis- 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 83 

taken for history. Is it asserted that human mem- 
ory is good for nothing if it stretch over a score of 
years ? What is your memory worth as to events 
happening twenty years ago ? What was happening 
then? 1883, 1873, 1863, — we were in the midst of 
the civil war. Your testimony before any jury, as 
to matters of any size, would be worth something to- 
day even as to events a score of years gone by. Do 
you think that there were no books in Paul's day? 
Plenty of books existed then, only they had the form 
of parchment volumes. This was the age of Livy 
and Tacitus. No printing-presses, indeed ; but books 
were easily multiplied. Call five hundred slaves into 
this room, and let them act as my amanuenses. I 
stand here and slowly dictate the contents of an Ode 
of Horace or an Epistle to the Romans. My five 
hundred amanuenses will make five hundred copies 
sooner than any printer in this city can set up the 
type and print five hundred. Of course the printer 
might surpass us in speed in producing ten thousand 
copies ; but when parchment volumes are passed 
from hand to hand, five hundred copies go far and 
last long as records. The idea that in the age of Livy 
and Tacitus, when libraries and books abounded, 
no authentic records could exist and be spread 
abroad, is preposterous in the highest degree. 

Galatians many scholars date at 54. But I open 
the first chapter of Galatians and read that Paul 
went down into Arabia and spent three years. Four- 
teen years after he went up to Jerusalem. Now if, 
as many commentators do, you add the three to the 
fourteen, you obtain seventeen years to take away 



84 OCCIDENT. 

from the twenty between 54 and 34. Yon shut those 
blades of the chronological shears until only three 
years remain between them. St. Paul's testimony 
as to the origin of Christianity is indisputably con- 
temporaneous evidence, and the puerile assertion of 
the infidels that no such evidence exists to the real- 
ity of the great events connected with the founding 
of Christianity is overwhelmed, horse, foot, and dra- 
goons. Never since the Apostolic age has Chris- 
tianity stood so proudly erect on her rendered rea- 
sons in the field of historic research as at the present 
hour. Strauss abandoned his own mythical theory 
before he died. It was buried before he was. There 
is not enough left of Strauss 's mythical theory be- 
tween these two blades to make a fig-leaf to cover 
the shame of historic skepticism. 

The watchword of the profoundest philosophy in 
Germany has for some years been, Back to Kant. 
Two great influences have guided philosophical spec- 
ulation in the Fatherland, a theistic and a pantheis- 
tic. The former originates with the philosophy of 
Plato and Aristotle, and is represented by the great 
succession of the schools of Leibnitz, Kant, and Lotze. 
The latter commences with Spinoza, and has its de- 
velopment in the schools of Schelling and Hegel. It 
is conceded on all hands that the foremost philosopher 
of Germany in the present generation was Hermann 
Lotze. His philosophy was profoundly anti-material- 
istic and theistic. I stood at his grave at Gottingen 
soon after his burial, and found at the head of the 
tomb the fresh palm leaves and laurels woven into 
the form of the Christian cross. Lotze's philosophy 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN GERMANY. 85 

sees in the wide field of human observation three 
things, a world of facts, a world of laws, a world of 
worths. By the latter is meant the standards of 
value, aesthetic and moral, belonging to the various 
objects of the universe. These three departments 
are not separable in reality, but only in thought. 
Lotze insists that self-evident truth requires us to 
hold, that facts are the field in which, and laws the 
method by which, the standards of sesthetic and 
moral worth in the universe are established and 
maintained. He insists, in opposition to all panthe- 
istic and materialistic systems, that such a union 
can become intelligible only through the idea of a 
Personal Deity, who, in the creation of the world, 
has voluntarily chosen certain forms and laws through 
which the ends of his work are gained. Our rela- 
tions to this Omnipotent and Omnipresent Being are 
made known to us through his voice in the conscience. 
The highest philosophy of our age is on its knees be- 
fore a Personal God. 



III. 

DELITZSCH ON THE NEW CRITICISM OF 
THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

THE FUTURE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THIRD LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, JANUARY 22, 1883. 



*' Men in office have begun to think themselves mere agents and 
servants of the appointing power. I am for staying the further con- 
tagion of this plague/' — Daniel Webster. 

" One third of the working hours of Senators and Eepresentatives 
is hardly sufficient to meet the demands made upon them in reference 
to appointments to office. The present system impairs the efficiency 
of the legislators. It degrades the civil service. It repels those high 
and manly qualities which are so necessary to a pure and efficient 
administration. It debauches the public mind by holding up public 
office as the reward of mere party zeal. To reform this service is 
one of the highest and most imperative duties of statesmanship." — 
James A. Garfield, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1877. 



" The burning question of the age is not, What does the Bible 
teach ? It is one yet more radical and f andamental, What is the 
Bible?" — Professor W. Henry Green. 

" Of this I am sure at the outset, that the Bible does speak to the 
heart of man in words that can only come from God. No historical 
research can deprive me of this conviction, or make less precious the 
Divine utterances that speak straight to the heart." — W. Robert- 
son Smith. 



PRELUDE III. 

THE FUTURE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 

Civil Service Reform in the United States has 
succeeded, as yet, only on paper, except in the city 
of Brooklyn. In that municipality twelve aldermen 
were lately put in jail for contempt of court. A 
mayor has been elected who is conducting the local 
government on business principles. He has unusu- 
ally large power for a city executive, and is held to 
a marvellously close responsibility. Brooklyn is thus 
attempting, at this moment, to solve a problem of 
really world-wide interest. 

What reply are we to make to the sneer of aris- 
tocratic circles in England, in Germany, in India, 
and of conservative leaders in Australia, to the effect 
that universal suffrage always fails to secure good 
government in great cities? A fifth of the popula- 
tion of the American Union now lives in cities of 
eight thousand or more inhabitants. In Australia 
the suffrage has been made broad. Nearly a quar- 
ter of the population lives in cities. In Sydnej^, and 
especially in Melbourne, almost precisely the difficul- 
ties which the United States have had with corrupt 
city officials are becoming very common, filling the 
newspaper discussions and awakening the anxiety of 
patriots of every political creed. 



90 OCCIDENT. 

Let tlie whole world be tlie background of all our 
discussions of our free institutions ; for the whole 
world is watching our successes and defeats. Re- 
member that, if we succeed in putting our civil 
service on a basis that will secure at once efficiency 
and honesty, we shall be removing the chief reproach 
brought against our institutions by their enemies 
abroad. At no time have I felt more humiliated in 
the presence of foreign critics than when I have 
attempted to stand on the ground of our municipal, 
state, and national civil service, and show that its 
frequent corruption is a disease of the surface, and 
not of the vitals. 

I most thoroughly believe that we are as honest a 
people as there is on the face of the earth ; but, in 
the matter of civil service we are more tempted 
than any other people. In eighty-two years our pop- 
ulation has increased from 3,000,000 to 53,000,000. 
As late as 1801 there were less than 1,000 civil 
service officers in the whole country ; now there are 
more than 100,000. We had then 69 custom-houses, 
and now have 135. Our ministers to foreign coun- 
tries were then 4, and our consuls 63 ; now the min- 
isters are 33, and the consuls 728. Then we had 906 
post-offices ; now we have 44,848. The Republican 
party has at its disposal 110,000 appointive officers. 
George Washington could know something definite 
as to the fitness of all the men he appointed to the 
civil service ; but it is not in the physical or mental 
power of any one man, nor of any ten men, now to 
sift the army of applicants for employment under 
government, and dispense its enormous patronage in- 



THE FUTUEE OF CIYIL SERVICE REFORM. 91 

telligently. We must not expect to tie witli mere 
paper twine a grab-bag as wide as the continent, 
and containing a constantly increasing income, now 
amounting to 1400,000,000 annually. 

The civil service bill, which has just become a 
law, will be opposed by scores of men who voted for 
it. The question put to a new-comer in society in 
Boston is, as you all know. Have you ever written a 
book ? In New York, How much are you worth ? 
In Chicago, How are you getting on ? In San Fran- 
cisco, Who owns you, — the railway monopoly or the 
sand-lots ? But in Washington the question is. Are 
you likely to be reelected ? [Laughter and applause.] 
Now, the people have spoken on the subject of civil 
service reform ; and, for fear of losing a reelection, 
many a congressman has recorded himself on the 
side of this reform, when, as I believe, he will not be 
found to fight very heartily for it at the polls or in 
caucuses. 

What is the spoils system ? It is the application 
to politics of the old style of marshalling armies in 
the mediaeval age. The army was to be inspired by 
the hope of plunder. Loot ! Booty ! These were 
the watchwords of attacking battalions when a city 
was to be sacked. A secret conclave, a single chief- 
tain, gave orders for the whole army, and the rally- 
ing cry of the soldiers was booty. Aaron Burr was 
the first man to apply to politics in this country the 
military system of the mediaeval age. Spoils ! Loot ! 
Booty ! These are to be the inspiration of attacking 
columns in political warfare. Spoils to the victors ! 
This was to keep up the esprit de corps of great po- 



92 OCCIDENT. 

litical organizations. And just as in an army a few 
men give the law to the whole mass of soldiers, so 
a secret conclave, or a single chieftain, according to 
Aaron Burr's system, was to rule the whole army of 
those who had the franchise. As the supreme crime 
in the soldier was bolting, or desertion, as it is 
called in military affairs, so the supreme crime in 
the voter was to be bolting or desertion from the line 
of effort prescribed by the chieftain. This is the 
spoils system, that had its first application to our 
politics by the subtle, sensual, almost devilish soul 
of Aaron Burr, who had no confidence shown him 
either by George Washington or Napoleon Bona- 
parte, as much as he tried to gain the good-will of 
each of these shrewd judges of human nature. Mar- 
tin Van Buren approved and extended this scheme. 
Jackson was the apt pupil both of Aaron Burr and 
Martin Van Buren. 

What I insist on is that booty, loot, has become 
of colossal proportions in this Republic. You have 
by this civil service bill less than thirty thousand 
of our officers appointed after examination. All the 
rest is booty yet ; all the rest, under the provisions 
of this bill, can be changed whenever parties are 
changed. England changes only about thirty men 
when she changes parties. Out of an hundred and 
ten thoiisand ofiicers, eighty thousand, including all 
on whose appointment a vote of the national Senate 
is necessary, are not reached by this enactment. 
Very soon there will be one hundred thousand to be 
changed, even if this bill is carried out. Our popu- 
lation is doubling every twenty-five or thirty years. 



THE FUTURE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 93 

We might have that law fairly executed, and yet 
change two hundred or four hundred thousand offi- 
cers every time we change parties at Washington. 
The Republic will not safely bear this strain. 

I do not assail the new civil service law as any- 
thing else than the best that could be carried through 
Congress at the present time. It is an educative 
measure. It is a moderate, wise enactment, under 
the present circumstances. I greatly reverence the 
wisdom of the chief promoters of this bill, especially 
of the man who drew the larger part of it, the Hon. 
Dorman B. Eaton, and of the Senator who added the 
section against political assessments, — General Haw- 
ley, of Connecticut. [Applause.] They are likely 
to be remembered in generations to come as foremost 
friends of one of the most important reforms of our 
vexed day. These men are, no doubt, profoundly 
shrewd in driving the thin end of the wedge first, 
and not attempting to force the thickness of reform 
at once into the gnarled oak of popular and partisan 
prejudice. 

But I think it high time to raise a note of alarm, 
— a note of predictive warning, at least, — that, even 
if its provisions could be carried out in good faith, 
the new civil service law would not close the grab- 
bag of partisan spoils. It leaves open more than two 
thirds of the entrance into that continental basket of 
the treasury. We must expect that the size and fat- 
ness of these spoils will continue to be a temptation 
to greed and fraud. Csesar, Antony, and Lepidus 
never had 1400,000,000 to dispose of annually. 

But who expects that the new law will be carried 






94 OCCIDENT. 

out in good faith by the Democrats if they come to 
power, or by the Republicans in case they should suc- 
ceed the Democrats, unless the people rise and thun- 
der in its favor continually. We had a civil service 
commission appointed, not many years ago, and we 
had high hopes about what it was to do ; but Con- 
gress starved it to death. It is a significant whisper 
at Washington that more than a score of politicians 
who voted for that bill are known to be resolved to 
work for its defeat as a law. On the day when that 
bill passed the House of Representatives it was my 
privilege to be in the national Capitol, and I put the 
question right and left, '' What will be the fate of 
the Civil Service Reform Bill the Senate has sent to 
the House ? " "It cannot pass. There is no hope 
of its passing. Even if it should pass, it would be so 
changed that you would not know the bill.'^ But it 
did pass by an overwhelming majority of three. to 
one. That vote is, probably, the most auspicious 
event in our history since the overthrow of the Re- 
bellion and the resumption of specie currency ; but I 
would have you look beyond it. 

The political managers of the country are yet a 
close league. The Tammany Halls, the Albany Re- 
gencies, under other names and under the old ones, 
are yet active. There is thus far no serious attempt 
made to apply civil service reform to state and mu- 
nicipal affairs. There are large and dangerous loop- 
holes in this new enactment. Suffice it to say, many 
a man who voted for it is now whispering, "We will 
drive a coach and four through it." Now I wish the 
people to put a strong hand on the reins of any coach 



THE FUTUEE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 95 

and four that seeks to drive through, this law [ap- 
plause], and show them that such audacity is not 
profitable. 

The last elections were, apparently, a triumph of 
the people over party. They were a blow of the se- 
rious masses of citizens against the political machine. 
They were an assertion of the independence of the 
people over political dictation and secret conclaves. 
They were a proclamation of the sense of the people 
that state affairs should not be under national con- 
trol, and city affairs not under state control. We 
have entered, apparently, upon a new era of inde- 
pendent politics. Thank God, it has been proved 
that only independent and Sunday-school politics are 
good for anything through a course of four years ! 
[Applause.] 

This bill contains four great words, — examina- 
tion, probation, promotion, prohibition : examination 
of all candidates for place in the civil service ; the 
appointment of men from the list of those who have 
successfully passed this examination ; promotion for 
merit ; probation before an absolute appointment 
is made ; and prohibition of political assessments. 
These are the four great ideas of this bill, unless I 
should mention as a great idea — it is so novel — that 
no man shall be employed in the public service who 
uses intoxicating liquors to excess. [Applause.] 
Thank Heaven, that provision is a part of this law ! 
[Applause.] But the people must stand unflinch- 
ingly by each one of these great words ; otherwise 
they will turn out to be but thin air. Over and over 
we have been cheated in the promise or the hope of 



96 OCCIDENT. 

civil service reform; and, unless tlie people thun- 
der at the polls repeatedly, the certainty is that many 
a coach and four will make sporfc of the barriers now 
expected to shut out from our national politics a dan- 
gerously partisan use of patronage. 

What more, then, ought the friends of civil ser- 
vice reform to do ? 

1. Maintain the organization of civil service leagues 
throughout the country to watch the execution of the 
law just enacted. 

2. Distribute literature to keep before the people 
the great facts as to the reform. 

3. Prepare defeat at the polls for all opponents of 
the new law. 

4. Broaden that law gradually so as to embrace 
consular appointments and the majority of all the 
civil service offices. 

5. Extend the operation of civil service examina- 
tion, probation for final appointment, promotion for 
merit, and prohibition of political assessments to 
state governments. 

6. Extend the same to the whole sphere of munic- 
ipal governments. 

Our example will tell to the very ends of the earth 
in the high matter of the leadership of hermit nations 
that are now reforming themselves, and we shall 
be imitated oftener than England will be, provided 
we show only that a broad suffrage can govern thor- 
oughly well our great cities and a colossal civil ser- 
vice. The eyes of civilized nations throughout the 
world are on America. There is much more likeli- 
hood that, in the reforms of the future, England will 



THE FUTUEE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM. 97 

approach us tlian that we shall approach her. The 
topic of civil service reform ought to be discussed, 
not merely in its municipal and state and national 
relations, but in its international. I would have 
young men who are friends of reform quote often to 
themselves Edmund Burke's adjuration : " Sursum 
cor da ! Lift up your hearts ! " Act as patriots to- 
ward cities and states and nations, and the whole 
world. The cause which seeks to promote a pure 
civil service in the foremost Republic of all time is 
a hope of all humanity ; for at the bottom of every 
serious soul on the globe is the prayer that govern- 
ments of the people, for the people, and by the peo- 
ple may not perish from the earth. [Applause.] 
7 



LECTURE III. 

DELITZSCH ON THE NEW CEITICISM OF THE OLD 
TESTAMENT. 

The Scriptures of the Old Testament were the 
Bible of our Lord and Saviour himself. Whoever 
applies to them the microscope and scalpel of mod- 
ern criticism seems to be half profane. We must not 
blame average Christians for feeling a shudder pass 
through their souls as they see the Old Testament 
laid on the dissecting table, and treated with all 
the coolness with which a corpse is handled under 
the knives of a surgeon. Eighteen centuries of vic- 
torious Christian discussion prove, however, that 
there is nothing permanently unsafe in the applica- 
tion of knives and microscopes to all themes, how- 
ever sacred. Shut the door on inquiry, and doubt 
always comes in at the window. Let investigation 
proceed; let the Old Testament be examined as 
thoroughly as the New has been ; let theories of de- 
velopment be applied to it as they have been to the 
New. Very probably the result on the field of Old 
Testament criticism will be what it notoriously has 
been on that of the New, — that attack will lead to 
reply, and the serious efforts of infidels occasion yet 
more serious efforts of Christians ; and so, while 
knowledge is enlarged, impregnable fortifications will 



DEMTZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 99 

rise on ground where, hitherto, there has been an in- 
sufficient defence. 

What position does the advanced thought of Ger- 
many take concerning the new criticism of the Old 
Testament ? 

There are three schools of Old Testament criti- 
cism in Europe. On the extreme right is a man like 
Keil, well known to all scholars as the joint author 
with Delitzsch of probably the best series of com- 
mentaries on the Old Testament. He is an extreme 
conservative ; his orthodoxy we should call that of 
the old school. In the middle stands Delitzsch, a 
conservative progressive, or a progressive conserva- 
tive. On the extreme left you have men like Well- 
hausen and Kuenen. Old school, new school, raw 
school ! These are accurate designations of the par- 
ties usually found in the front of advancing discus^ 
sion. The new departure which I have been discus- 
sing seems to me to be rather more than new school ; 
it is very nearly raw school. I belong to the new 
school ; but Heaven forbid that I should join the raw 
school ! 

Wellhausen and Kuenen I have heard spoken of 
with disrespect by nearly every scholar with whom I 
conversed in Germany. I must not name my au- 
thority ; but I went one day to a great commentator 
of the University of Bonn, — a man whose name is 
known throughout the world, — and I said to him, 
"What do you think of Wellhausen?" ''A most 
pestilent critic; a man who is misleading the theo- 
logical students of Germany ; not at all a representa- 
tive of our best scholarship ; a person with a beau- 



100 OCCIDENT. 

tiful style, attractive in his manner of presenting his 
themes, but usually without substance in his critical 
analysis." 

Walking along the bank of the Rhine with a Ger- 
man professor, whose name is known throughout 
Christendom, and not seeking nor expecting any 
such disclosure, I was told that it is believed that 
more than a few theological pupils in Holland are 
immoral men. Nobody pretends to doubt that in 
some of the theological schools of the Netherlands, 
and especially in the hall at the head of which 
Kuenen stands, morality is not indispensable to mem- 
bership of a theological class. On a topic like this 
only a whisper can be uttered. I said to my infor- 
mant, " If the facts were known in the United 
States that theological students in certain schools 
are believed on credible evidence to be immoral men, 
we should no more take our theology from_ that style 
of schools than we should take our drinking waters 
from these gutters." There is not a little of theo- 
logical discussion in Europe conducted by immoral 
men. It is a fact that students sometimes come out 
of semi - rationalistic theological courses in France 
and Holland with the filth of the pit upon them, and 
go into state churches as preachers, or into certain 
universities as professors ; and, when books are pub- 
lished by them, we must, forsooth, sit down and pick 
them to pieces, and study them with painstaking 
candor ; for, if we do not, liberalism will criticise us 
for narrowness. Let us send forth from America a 
breath of New England moral dignity to sweep out 
of sight all theology that does not come from a pure 
heart as well as a clear head I 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 101 

Wellhausen, who was lately a professor of theology 
in Greifswald, is now a member of the philosophical 
faculty at Halle. He lately had but fije hearers 
there ; and it is said to be exceedingly difficult for a 
stranger to find the hall in which he lectures. Ger- 
many has not asked for the second part of his famous 
book on the History of Israel. Only the first part 
has been published, and that is fragmentary in struc- 
ture. He has just announced that he does not intend 
to issue the second part for many years to come, and 
that there will not be soon any new edition of the 
old part now out of print. Does that look as if Ger- 
many were perishing to know Wellhausen's opinion 
on the Old Testament ? I once had opportunity to 
ask Robertson Smith, in a parlor in Aberdeen, " How 
would you prove the supernatural origin of the Dec- 
alogue ? " His answer was : " You cannot prove it to 
a man who is not inclined to admit it." Whereupon 
I said, " What do you think of Wellhausen's theories 
concerning the Old Testament ? " ''I do not adopt 
them all. I make strenuous objection to many of 
them ; but I believe Wellhausen knows more of the 
Old Testament than any other man in Germany." 
Delitzsch, on the other hand, says that Wellhausen 
pleases young scholars, but not mature ones. 

Let me turn from the raw school, and also from the 
old school, to that middle position which, I believe, 
is the safest. Let us hear what men like Delitzsch 
say in answer to the question. How are we to meet 
the new criticism of the Old Testament ? This preg- 
nant inquiry I am able to answer in Professor De- 
litzsch's own words. It will always be a keen de- 



102 OCCIDENT. 

light to me to recall in memory an evening at Leip- 
sic, when I heard this great Old Testament scholar 
read eight propositions, before an English gathering 
of stndents, and expand them to an hour and a quar- 
ter in vivid, idiomatic English speech. I now hold 
in my hand Delitzsch's autograph copy of these eight 
theses. They seem to me to be altogether the most 
authoritative and weighty words that have recently 
been uttered on Old Testament criticism, and not to 
be surpassed in value by anything their author has 
written elsewhere in space as small as these occupy. 
I had his permission to publish them, and I shall 
venture to read them, as they are brief and exceed- 
ingly pointed. Here, then, is the platform on which 
the evangelical conservative and progressive new 
criticism of the Old Testament stands, and I con- 
fess that it is a position to which I should be glad to 
bring the whole Christian Church. Professor De- 
litzsch says : — 

1. "The historical criticism of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures, "as practised by Kuenen and others, starts from the 
dogmatic presupposition of the anti-supernaturaUstic view 
of the world. This criticism denies miracle, denies proph- 
ecy, denies revelation. Employing these words, it joins 
with them philosophical, not biblical, conceptions. The re- 
sults of this criticism are, in the main points, foregone con- 
clusions, and its presuppositions are ready for use in ad- 
vance of any investigation." 

Anti-supernaturalism is the loadstone that throws 
every compass on the ship of this new criticism out 
of its natural position. The Old Testament must be 
so manipulated as to show that nothing miraculous 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 103 

lies behind its accounts of the supernatural. In or- 
der to prove that no prophecies were ever fulfilled, 
the date of many prophets must be brought down be- 
yond that which has been assigned to them for ages 
by the best scholarship. The Decalogue could not 
have been proclaimed on Sinai among thunders ; and 
so we must suppose, says Wellhausen, that all that is 
said in the Book of Exodus about thunders of Sinai 
is a fiction, a piece of rhetoric invented many genera- 
tions after the day of Moses to give impressiveness 
to the moral law. 

2. " On the contrary, our historical criticism starts from 
an idea of God from which the possibiUty of miracle follows. 
Confessing the resurrection of Christ, it confesses the real- 
ity of a central miracle to which the other miracles of re- 
demptive history refer, as to the sun its satellites. In view 
of the indisputable harmony of the Old Testament predic- 
tion and the New Testament fulfilment, it confesses the 
reality of prophecy. In consequence of the self-knowledge 
and the recognition of God which Christianity affords, it 
confesses the reality of revelation. 

3. " We reject, a priori, all results of criticism which abol- 
ish the Old Testament premises of Christianity as the religion 
of redemption. The second and third chapters of Genesis 
are of greater weight than the entire Pentateuch. In this 
history of man's temptation and fall, and of God's prepara- 
tions for the reformation of men through judgment and strug- 
gles, it may be that facts and the dress of the facts — that is, 
the forms of representation in which they are clothed — are 
to be distinguished from each other ; but, with the substantial 
reality of this history, the religion of redemption stands or 
falls. The historical unity of the origin of mankind is one 
of the indispensable presuppositions of Christianity, which, 



104 OCCIDENT. 

without it, could be the religion of the most perfect morals, 
but not the religion of the redemption of mankind. 

4. " Those portions of the contents of the Pentateuch 
which belong to the substance of Christian faith are inde- 
pendent of the results of critical analysis. For that the 
people of Israel, after their miraculous deliverance from 
Egyptian slavery, received the law by God's miraculous 
revelation in the Mount of Sinai, and that Moses was the 
mediator both of Israel's deliverance and of the Divine leg- 
islation, is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of all the 
writers who participated in the codification of the Penta- 
teuch ; by the Song of Deborah (Judges v.), and by the 
prophets of the eighth century, as Amos ii. 10 ; Hosea, xii. 
13 ; Micah vi. 4, and vii. 15. The religious tone and sub- 
stance of such authentic Psalnas of David as Psalms viii., 
xiv., xvi., are quite inexplicable without the priority of the 
revealed law which David praises in Psalm xix. 

5. " The oldest constituent part of the law is the Dec= 
alogue, and the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx., xxiii.), the 
overture of which is the Decalogue. In Deuteronomy, 
Moses repeats the Decalogue freely, and melts it in the 
current of his testamentary admonitions. In the Pentateuch 
there is no 'part claiming^ according to its own testimony^ to 
be written by Moses himself, which may not he shown to go 
back substantially to Moses' own hand. The proper style of 
Moses is the original of that form of style which is called 
Jehovistic and Deuteronomic. 

6. " It is true that many, or, at least, four hands partici- 
pated in the codification of the Pentateuchal history and 
legislation. But what the modern critics say regarding the 
ages of these writers is quite uncertain. In general, the 
results reached by these critics are by no means as unques- 
tionable as they pretend to be. It would be unfortunate if 
the faith of the Church — that is, our historical certainty 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMEKT. 105 

of the fundamental facts of redemptive history, were de- 
pendent on these critical results. Many of the former re- 
sults of the critical school are now out of fashion ; its pres- 
ent results often contradict each other. In reality, we 
know little, and imagine that we know much. 

7. "It is unjustifiable to obtrude these modern critical 
results upon the Church, or to draw those who are not theo- 
logians into the labyrinth of Pentateuchal analysis. With- 
out knowledge of the original Hebrew, an independent judg- 
ment about these questions is quite impossible. Indeed, 
Wellliausen's sagacity is as great as his frivolity. Young 
scholars, but not mature ones, are fascinated by him. There 
are elements of truth in the new phase of the Old Testa- 
ment criticism; but the procedure of sifting has scarcely 
begun. 

8. " It is true that the Mosaic legislation had its history, 
and that the codification of its parts was executed succes- 
sively. But the reconstruction of this history is very diffi- 
cult, and perhaps impossible. It is enough that the law has 
the very character which the Epistle to the Hebrews de- 
scribes. Our Lord is its end, and He has balanced the ac- 
count book with his blood. Moses and his Elohists and 
Jehovists are like shadows which disappear before the 
Word which is made flesh." 

Sucli is an authoritative statement of the position 
of the foremost critic of the Old Testament in Ger- 
many. I suppose no one would place any member of 
the extreme left wing on as high a plane as Delitzsch 
in the matter of learning, candor, and large experi- 
ence in Old Testament criticism. You say Delitzsch 
has not always exhibited entire candor. For in- 
stance, his commentaries speak of Isaiah as if it were 
all written by one author, while he is said to give his 



106 OCCIDENT. 

classes authority to suppose tliat his opinion now is 
that there was a Deutero-Isaiah. I have heard some 
of Delitzsch's pupils criticise him for not making 
changes in the stereotyped plates of his commentaries 
issued some years ago ; but Delitzsch knows very 
well that when he makes an important statement 
in his class-room all specialists in his department 
throughout Europe will promptly hear of it. He 
knows he cannot put before his class his fresh opin- 
ions without scholars throughout Christendom very 
soon learning what they are. His newer views are 
discussed in his articles in current theological maga- 
zines. I think it unfair to accuse him of vacillation 
or want of candor because he has not changed the 
stereotyped plates of his works. In his maturest 
years, he is a man of fresh spirit. He commands 
naturally the enthusiastic loyalty of youth among 
his students. Always abreast of the most advanced 
of serious scholars on his themes, he is quite willing 
to make changes in his opinions, if required by evi- 
dence to do so, and all this is a ground of confidence 
in him rather than the reverse. 

In order that you may have fairly before you both 
his concessions to the critics and the limitations he 
puts on their theories I have endeavored to sum- 
marize, in four propositions, the essential points of 
difference between Delitzsch and the left wing of 
critics of the Old Testament. 

1. The Pentateuch has been correctly analyzed 
into the work of at least four different hands ; but 
what the modern critics say as to the age of the dif= 
ferent documents composing it is quite uncertain. 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 107 

2. The so-called higher criticism has, perhaps, 
proved that many of the laws found in the Pen- 
tateuch arose gradually, according to the needs of 
the people ; and it is certain that Ezra, about B. c. 
444, had a hand in their codification ; but it cannot 
be admitted that the Priests' Code, including the 
statements as to the giving of the law on Sinai, is 
the work of the free invention of the latest date, 
which takes on the artificial appearance of history. 

3. The chronological order in which the documents 
arose has probably been correctly described as, first 
the Jehovistic, and next the Elohistic portions ; but 
the law of Ezekiel xl.-xlviii. is not prior to the 
Priests' Code of Exodus, as the critics maintain, but 
subsequent to it. 

4. There is a certain amount of real learning en- 
listed on the side of the rationalistic criticism ; but 
it is governed by foregone conclusions ; it is funda- 
mentally anti - super n aturalistic ; and so its results 
are arbitrary, and reached in advance of investiga- 
tion. 

Students of this subject should be referred to a se- 
ries of very careful articles lately published by De- 
litzsch in Luthardt's " Zeitschrift," and largely trans- 
lated by Professor Curtiss, of Chicago, in this country. 
I can commend most conscientiously Professor Ciir- 
tiss's elaborate article in the " Presbyterian Review " 
for October, 1882, on Delitzsch's position as to the 
new criticism of the Old Testament. (See, also, sev- 
eral other highly valuable articles in the " Presby- 
terian Review" and the "Biblotheca Sacra " for 1882 
and 1883 on Old Testament Criticism, and most es- 



108 OCCIDENT. 

pecially, Professor Green's " Moses and the Proph- 
ets.") 

Professor Curtiss puts the whole complex matter 
very vigorously and clearly before his readers in this 
article ; and his opinions, as all scholars here knov7, 
are sufficiently conservative on this topic. Professor 
Curtiss is even more conservative than Delitzsch, 
who has been his great master, and who, as I hap- 
pen to know, is exceedingly proud, as with justice 
he may be, of the work of his American pupil. 

If you will bear with me once for all, I will sum- 
marize the position which, according to my judg- 
ment, may now be safely taken as to the new criti- 
cism of the Old Testament. 

1. It is indisputable that the Pentateuch teaches 
ethical monotheism and inculcates a pure spiritual 
worship. 

2. Even if it were shown that the documents com- 
posing it were possessed in common by many of the 
nations among which the Hebrews had their origin, 
the fact would remain incontrovertible, that these 
populations were predominantly polytheistic and de- 
voted to a corrupt form of worship. 

3. The documents, therefore, must be supposed to 
have been purified from polytheism and other false 
doctrines, before they were made a part of the Pen- 
tateuch ; and this cleansing of them, in a barbaric 
age, from adulterate elements which poison them in 
their Chaldean and Babylonian form, is one proof of 
their inspiration. 

4. The inspiration of the Pentateuch in regard to 
religious things would not be disproved by showing 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 109 

that it was made up according to the documentary 
theory of the critics. 

5. The new criticism of the Old Testament raises 
a question not as to the fact, but as to the manner, 
of inspiration. This discussion does not, therefore, 
touch fundamental points ; for the question as to the 
manner of inspiration is not one between believers 
and unbelievers, but between Christians themselves. 

The churches differ in their theory as to the man- 
ner of inspiration, although they agree as to the cer- 
tainty of the fact. Do not think I underrate the 
difference between a low and a high theory of inspi- 
ration ; but a discussion as to the mere manner of 
it is of almost infinitely less consequence than a dis- 
cussion as to the fact ; and a discussion as to the fact 
of inspiration is of far less consequence than a discus- 
sion as to the fact of revelation. 

6. The churches at large, therefore, need not be 
drawn into the labyrinth of Old Testament criti- 
cism ; for the practical issues involved in it do not 
affect the chief matters of the Christian faith. 

7. The theory that Ezra is the reall}^ responsible 
author of the Pentateuch does not account for the 
literature which is admitted to have existed before 
Ezra's time, and which presupposes the existence of 
the chief portions of the Mosaic law, and especially 
of the Decalogue. Such literature is found in the 
Song of Deborah (Judges v.), and in the writings 
of the earlier prophets, such as Amos ii. 10 ; Hosea 
xii. 13 ; Micah vi. 4 and vii. 15 ; and in Psalms viii., 
xiv., xvi., xix., which are authentically ascribed to 
David. The spiritual elevation of the Psalms ini- 



110 OCCIDENT. 

plies a training received from a preyiously existing 
Decalogue. 

My friends, let this topic burst upon you like the 
welling forth of a spring of crystalline water from 
the mountain side ; and perhaps by sudden onset it 
will master you, and give you peaceful convictions 
in the midst of all the tumult of discussion. What 
do we know about the Psalms ? Some of them were 
not written by David ; but the most of them were. 
They came into existence, large numbers of them, 
before Ezra's time. Who can explain the Psalms, 
without supposing a moral law like the Decalogue 
going before them, and leading Israel to those heights 
of spiritual experience which the poetry of David ex- 
presses ? The world has not reached similar heights 
since, except in a very few cases, in which Chris- 
tianity has been the source of the elevation. What 
accounts for the bursting into history of these Psalms 
if you do not suppose a mighty spiritual experience 
going before them in the history of Israel ? A law 
awakening the soul to spiritual sensitiveness, and 
making the writing of these Psalms possible, must 
have existed for generations before their date. The 
great Psalms, the oldest, are something that cannot 
be explained at all, unless you suppose a great spirit- 
ual training in the previous history of Israel. Da- 
vid's Psalms presuppose the Decalogue, both psycho- 
logically and historically. 

8. The theory that Ezra is responsible for the 
Pentateuch does not account for the figure and in- 
fluence of Moses as delineated in the Old Testament 
at large. 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. Ill 

Anti - supernaturalistic critics attacked the New 
Testament; but what they could not explain was 
the figure of the Apostle Paul moying through the 
first century, and founding churches from side to side 
of the Roman Empire, and filling them with a faith 
and life which lifted heathenism off its hinges and 
turned the course of the dolorous and accursed ages 
into new channels. What they could not explain 
was the character of our Lord in the New Testa- 
ment literature. There it stands, and, as I heard 
Professor Peabody, of Harvard University, say, the 
starting forth on the historic canvas of such a pic- 
ture as that, under the fingers of such unskilled 
limners as the fishermen of Galilee, is proof of its 
historical reality ; and its historical reality is proof 
of its divinity. 

Just so the new criticism of the Old Testament 
is disturbed by the presence of the colossal historic 
figure which we call Moses. There is the picture 
in the Old Testament writings. It cannot be elimi- 
nated from them. It is a consistent painting of char- 
acter. There must have been a cause bringing that 
painting into existence. If the Pentateuch is a piece 
of scrap work, if it was patched together by this 
editor and that, and did not take its present final 
form until the time of Ezra, how are you to account 
for the reverence shown for the memory of Moses in 
the earliest Psalms ? How are you to account for 
the zeal of the early prophets before the period of the 
exile ? How are you to account for the reverence of 
all ages subsequent to Moses for his historic character 
as described in the Pentateuch? Moses is utterly 



112 OCCIDENT. 

inexplicable ; this picture of liim in the Old Testa- 
ment writings is without adequate cause, on the sup- 
position that he is simply a figure which the bits of 
colored glass in the kaleidoscope of fragmentary doc- 
uments have formed by accident, as pious fiction has 
turned them over and over. The kaleidoscopic ex- 
planation of the origin of the picture of the charac- 
ter of Moses is utterly unscientifi^c. Nothing but anti- 
supernaturalistic prejudice can make the so-called 
critical school appear in this matter as anything 
other than a merely and most arbitrarily conjectural 
school. 

9. The extreme of the left wing of the conjectu- 
ral school reduces a great part of the history of the 
Pentateuch to pious fiction, the composition of which 
cannot be made consistent with common honesty or 
common sense. 

Wellhausen has this atrocious passage in his article 
on Israel in the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica:" "The 
giving of the law at Sinai has only a formal, not 
to say a dramatic significance. It is the product of 
the poetic necessity for such a representation of the 
manner in which the people was constituted Jeho- 
vah's people as should appear directly and graph- 
ically to the imagination. Only so can we justly 
interpret these expressions according to which Jeho- 
vah with his own mouth thundered the Ten Com- 
mandments down from the mountain to the people 
below, and afterward, for forty days, held a confiden- 
tial conference with Moses alone on the summit. 
For the sake of producing a solemn and vivid im- 
pression, that is represented as having taken place in 



DELITZSCH OX THE OLD TESTAMENT. 113 

a single tlirilling moment, which, in reality, occurred 
slowly and almost unobserved." 

10. Tho theory here opposed is inconsistent with 
the representations of the New Testament that Moses 
was the author of the law. The supernatural origin 
of the Mosaic legislation, and especially of the Dec- 
alogue, is affirmed by our Lord himself. 

What was the opinion of our Lord and Saviour 
concerning the Old Testament ? His opinion ought 
to be ours. I know that careless men have sometimes 
quoted our Lord's sayings concerning the Psalms to 
prove that all the Psalms were written by David. 
That would be an unwarranted use of his language. 
So I believe we cannot prove from his language that 
the whole account of Moses was written by Moses ; 
for it contains the account of his death, and he could 
not have written that. Any theory of the Old Tes- 
tament inconsistent with the Divine inculcation of 
our Lord himself must be pronounced unhistoric and 
unscientific, as it is surely antibiblical. Moses is 
named eighty times in the New Testament, and, 
among these, twenty-four times as the author, and 
fifteen times as the writer, of the whole or a part of 
the law. (See " British and Foreign Evangelical Re- 
view," No. ciii. p. 113.) 

11. The central historical error of the rationalistic 
critics is in supposing that the non-execution of a law 
proves its non-existence. 

Luther led the Reformation ; and, as has been sug- 
gested by many a disputant on this theme, it would 
be easy, on the principles of the new school, to prove 
that Luther wrote the New Testament. Ezra wrote 

8 



114 OCCIDENT. 

the Pentateuch, forsooth ! The chief of the laws in 
the Pentateuch did not exist in ages wlien we have 
no proof of their observance ! Then we ma}^ per- 
haps, prove that Luther wrote the Epistle to the 
Romans, and especially the one to the Galatians, 
which was his chief weapon in the time of the Ref- 
ormation. The New Testament seems to have been 
forgotten in the Dark Ages for a long while ; and, if 
the non-observance of a law proves its non-existence, 
then the New Testament was not in existence in the 
Dark Ages, or at least large portions of it were not. 

12. Many questions as to the structure of the Old 
Testament writings cannot be settled until our knowl- 
edge of Assyriology, and especially of Egyptology, 
has progressed further. They must await the ad- 
vance of historical and archaeological science, and 
should not be answered on exegetical grounds alone. 

Professor Lenormant, author of a recent book en- 
titled " The Beginnings of History," is a devout Cath- 
olic, but he is at the same time a thorough scholar 
in archreology. He holds that the day has not come 
yet for a final criticism of the Old Testament ; and 
w^ell may he do so when our theories are every year 
being revolutionized as to secular history by the un- 
covering of ancient cities. The general progress of 
archffioloo-ical knowledoe has caused asfain and aejain 
a revision of old positions. As we study Babylon 
and Chaldea at large, as we study Egypt, we are 
likely to obtain information that will make archj3eo- 
logical science possible on Old Testament grounds. 
It was only 3^esterday, as it seems to me, that I was 
standing in the Boulak Museum in Cairo, looking 



DELITZSCH ON THE OLD TESTAMENT. 115 

into the face of a mummy, said to bo that of tho king 
that oppressed the children of Israel in ancient Egypt. 
It is only yesterday, as it were, scholars began to feel 
sure that there are relics yet left in Kgypt that may 
illuminate the period of the Exodus. It is only yes- 
terday that we obtained possession of what is now 
called the Chaldean account of the Deluge. What is 
the tendency of all these discoveries? Herodotus 
used to be sneered at as untrustworthy ; but no man 
sneers at him to-day. The general result of the 
progress of archsBological knowledge in Egyptology 
and Assyriology has been to substantiate the grand 
facts of the Old Testament history. This tendency 
is so striking that we may stand upon archaeology in 
its present state in making our reply to the extreme 
left of the new criticism of the Old Testament. Pro- 
fessor Lenormant admits that the Pentateucli may 
have been made up by a combination of documents ; 
but he finds proof of its inspiration in the purificar 
tion of these documents from polytheism and all in- 
culcations of idolatry and other false doctrines. He 
sees in the winnowing of these books proof that God 
was behind their composition. 

There is a bell in the Cathedral of Cologne made 
by the melting together of French cannon. It would 
be a very difficult task indeed to analyze that bell 
and determine whence the cannon came. Something 
like this, however, is the task Vjefore those who adopt 
the extreme theories of the rationalistic critics of the 
Pentateuch. In the minute literary traits of this 
series of documents, it must be supposed possible to 
find the lost dates of their origin, of their combina- 



116 OCCIDENT. 

tion, and of subsequent editorial revisions. But what 
if this vague and fanciful search were successful? 
Even if it be granted that documents drawn from 
many polytheistic nations and ages were the original 
constituents of the Pentateuch, we have not touched 
the question as to the inspiration of the combined 
mass at all. The mass is strangely purified from all 
false doctrine. A divine fire has burned all adulter- 
ate elements out of it, and fused the constituents in 
a combination wholly new. Metallic fragments are 
one set of objects ; melted together into a bell and 
hung in a cathedral tower they are another object 
altogether. Mere white dust is one thing ; com- 
pacted into marble, in a vase, it has a ring, and is 
quite another. The cannon, melted and hung aloft 
in the form of a bell, are no longer cannon. They 
are an inspired work. It is our privilege, indeed,, to 
learn all we can as to the composition of this bronze ; 
but our highest business is to ring the bell in the 
cathedral tower. The moral law and the ethical 
monotheism of the Pentateuch have proved their re- 
sonance as often as they have been rightly used age 
after age. The Pentateuch, hung in the cathedral 
tower of the world, has uttered God's voice ; and our 
most pressing duty is to ring the bell loudly in the 
heights of history, rather than to inquire, with idle 
curiosity, how it originated by the melting together 
of many fragments. 



lY. 

PROFESSOR ZOLLNER'S VIEWS ON SPIR- 
ITUALISM, 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

THE VANGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOURTH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, JANUARY 29, 1883. 



" Turn, turn, my wheel. All life is brief ; 
What now is bud will soon be leaf. 
The Wind blows east, the Wind blows west ; 
The blue eggs in the robin's nest 
Will soon have wings and beak and breast." 

Longfellow, Keramos. 

" It is Christ who rules British India, and not the British Govern- 
ment. It is not the British army that deserves any honor for con- 
quering India. If unto any army appertains the honor of holding 
India for England, that army is the army of Christian Missionaries. 
Their devotion, their self-abnegation, their philanthropy, their love 
of God, their attachment and allegiance to the truth, all these have 
found and will continue to find a deep place in the gratitude of my 
countrymen. They have brought unto us Christ." — Keshub Chdn- 
DER Sen, Lectures in India, pp. 280, 281. 



"Die Verniinftelei, dass Wunder jetzt nicht mehr nothig seien, 
ist Aumassung grosserer Einsicht als ein Mensch sich wohl zutrauen 
soil." — Kant, Werke, ed. Rosenkranz, x, 100. 

" Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam sed contra quam est nota 
natura." — St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, xxi. 8. 



PRELUDE IV. 

THE YANGUAUDS OF CHEISTIAK IMISSIONS. 

All tliat united Protestant Christendom together 
gives annually for missions would not pay tlie liquor 
bill of the United States for three days, nor that of 
the British Islands for two. At the opening of the 
century all Protestant Christendom expended only 
^250,000 annually for missions. It expends to-day 
$7,500,000 for that purpose. This is a large amount, 
you think. It is a bagatelle. The dissipations of 
Saratogas and Newports and Brightons would hardly 
find this sum worth mentioning in the hugeness of 
their expenses for self-gratification. The churches 
are penurious toward missions. We pride ourselves 
on having paid off great debts, and on having received 
large legacies for missionary organizations. Possibly 
we shall be, as Ernest Penan says, " an amusing cen- 
tury to future centuries." One of the things that will 
amuse our successors on this planet will undoubtedly 
be our unwarranted self-complacency in this day of 
small things in missions. In China there is now not 
an ordained missionary for a million people. In the 
population accessible to the American Board there 
is as yet only one missionary for some 700,000 in- 
habitants. Modern Christendom has thrown one peb- 
ble into the great ocean of missionary effort, and 



120 OCCIDENT. 

stands with an amused cliildish conceit on the shore 
of history watching the wide ripples produced by that 
pebble, and supposes that it is reforming the world. 
Another century will sneer at us for our conceit and 
our penuriousness. 

The pillar of fire, which is the supernatural van- 
guard of Christian missions, is the biblical truth 
that men are to be judged by the deeds done in the 
body. Because I do not believe that we are to be 
judged by the deeds done in any intermediate state, 
I do believe in missions to all men in their present 
state. Because I do not believe in probation after 
death, I do believe in sending missions to all men 
before their death. Whoever does not attain sim- 
ilarity of feeling with God cannot be at peace in his 
presence. In nominally Christian lands and in pa- 
gan countries, there are millions of whom the cool 
judgment of science must be that they are acquiring 
a character dissimilar to that of God. They are 
living in the love of what God hates, and in the 
hate of what God loves. These postures of soul 
tend to become permanent. It is self-evident that, 
without deliverance from the love of sin and the 
guilt of it, there can be no salvation ; but, it is in- 
disputable that uncounted multitudes of our race, 
from not beholding God as He is revealed in the 
gospels, are failing to obtain this double deliver- 
ance. It is a truth of Scripture, as well as of ethical 
science, that the blood of my brother may cleave to 
my skirts if I have light which he needs vitally and 
do not communicate it to him. All these facts are 
visible in the coolest scientific view of the ethical 
condition of the nations. 



THE YANGUAEDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 121 

It would not be necessary for me to open the 
Scriptures to make myself zealous to advance mis- 
sions, because the philanthropic attitude of mind is 
enough to arouse the soul to this duty. There are 
three hundred millions of women now on this planet 
who have only the Buddhist hope of being born 
again as men instead of toads or snakes. There are 
eighty millions of women in Moslem harems. There 
are myriads of men and women and children grow- 
ing up in the most degraded superstitions, and suf- 
fering in mind, body, and estate, from inherited pa- 
gan customs. In the name of, mere philanthropy 
and secular prudence, Christian missions ought to re- 
ceive a support, immediate, abundant, permanent, un- 
flinching. 

After a tour around the globe, during which I met 
personally more than two hundred missionaries, how 
shall I summarize what to me, meditating often on 
this theme in solitude and in company, by sea and 
by land, appear to be the more important facts, ex- 
hibiting our present duty toward Christian missions 
throughout the world ? 

1. In Bengal alone, out of a population of sixty- 
three millions, there are, according to Dr. W. W. 
Hunter, the government statistician of the Indian 
Empire, ten millions who suffer hunger whenever the 
harvest falls short, and thirteen millions who do not 
know the feeling of a full stomach, except in the 
mango season. (" England's Work in India," by 
W. W. Hunter, LL. D., London, 1881, p. 78.) 

Apparent poverty is not always real poverty in 
Asia. Under the old East India Company there was 



122 OCCIDENT. 

sent to Calcutta once a committee of judges, to make 
investigations as to the execution of the queen's de- 
sires in regard to civic affairs. One of the judges, as 
he landed on the banks of the Hooghly, saw multi- 
tudes of people, without shoes and stockings and 
very thinly clad. He turned and said to his asso- 
ciate : " My brother, behold the sad effects of tyr- 
anny. Before we have been conducting our investi- 
gation six months, I hope these multitudes will all 
be comfortably clad in shoes and stockings." Such a 
misconception as this is ludicrous to the last degree. 
Under the tropics poverty does not look as it does 
with us. But, when you think of families in South- 
ern India whose entire income is fifteen dollars a 
year ; when you think of families in China who re- 
gard themselves as very well off if they have sixty 
dollars a year ; when you think of poor widows in 
India and China subsisting on grains and roots, with 
only a half dollar a month ; when you think what 
any considerable failure of the harvest may do in 
India and China, sending millions to death through 
famine, you must perceive that poverty, in spite of 
all the qualifications that are to be put upon our 
ideas when transferred to the East, is one of the 
kings of terror in the Orient. 

2. In populations poverty stricken and often fam- 
ished, the American Board of Commissioners for For- 
eign Missions, almost alone among the missionary 
managing bodies of the world, is insisting on large 
or complete self-support by the native churches. 

In Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Canton, Fuhchau, 
Shanghai, Kobe, Kioto, Tokio, and Yokohama, ten 



THE VANGUARDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 123 

representative cities of Asia, it was my fortune to 
put to large gatherings of missionaries of all denom- 
inations and nationalities a series of questions on the 
religious condition of India, China, and Japan, and, 
among them, this inquiry : " Ought native Christians 
to be encouraged and instructed to give a tenth of 
their income to the support of their churches ? " 
With not half a dozen exceptions in at least a hun- 
dred cases, missionaries outside the field of the Amer- 
ican Board replied : " No, not yet ; " but missionaries 
inside the field of the American Board said : " Yes ;" 
and so did the foremost of their pupils and converts. 
One evening in Bombay, the second city of the Brit- 
ish Empire (for Bomba}^ is now larger than Calcutta, 
or than Glasgow or Liverpool), I was putting a series 
of written questions to a company of missionaries 
and civilians, and this question about self - support 
was among the inquiries. Scotch and English mis- 
sionaries, one after the other, rose and opposed such 
a pressure as is brought to bear on native churches 
by instructing them to give a tenth of their income 
for the support of their pastor ; but, finally, uprose a 
converted Brahmin from out of the field of the Amer- 
ican Board, and, in the most incisive, almost classic 
English, almost turned the feeling of the company in 
favor of the American plan. I had a similar experi- 
ence in many a city, and I found the converts, espe- 
cially the most intelligent of them, quite as emphatic 
in defending this system of self-support as the mis- 
sionaries of the American Board themselves. 

3. The American Board has the high respect of 
all other missionary bodies, because it leads them all, 



124 OCCIDENT. 

unless we except William Taylor's missions, in ap- 
plying the principle of self-support. This Board is 
thought by its compeers in India and China to push 
this principle almost to an extreme, and is even crit- 
icised as too economical in regard to schools, church 
buildings, and the houses of missionaries. 

It has been my fortune to be a guest in many mis- 
sionary centres, and I have usually found that Scotch 
and English and German mission stations appeared to 
be much better equipped with means of giving a guest 
comfort for a night or two than the missions under 
the American Board. I have met American mission- 
aries of the Presbyterian and of the Methodist type 
apparently much richer than those of the American 
Board. You say that, for once, at least, I am speak- 
ing like a Congregationalist, and am defending the 
managers of the missions of my own denomination. 
It is natural that I should do so, because they have 
been recently assailed for wasting the funds of the 
churches. I know that, in comparison with many 
other boards, they have been penurious. I know 
that they have pinched noble men and women in 
their efforts in Asia, in order that they might not ex- 
pose themselves to the charge of lack of economy. I 
know that, if the American Board deserves any crit- 
icism at all, it is for being too close-fisted. That is 
precisely the criticism brought against it by its com- 
peers in Asia. I do not personally endorse this crit- 
icism ; but, when I hear men saying that the Amer- 
ican Board, the most economical board on earth, is 
wasting the funds of the churches, I must be per- 
mitted, in the name of ordinary candor and manli- 



THE VANGUAEDS OF CHEISTIAN MISSIONS. 125 

ness, to make a stern protest against this absurd 
charge . [Applause.] 

4. In Japan the middle classes of the population 
have been reached to a considerable extent by Chris- 
tian missions, and not a few native churches are al- 
ready self-supporting. The same is measurably true 
in some of the older missions of Southern India, 
Egypt, and Asia Minor. 

It is an amazing circumstance that, in 1881, the 
1,200 church members belonging to the missions of 
the United Presbyterian Board in Egypt, most of 
them very poor men and women, raised X 4,546, or 
more than $17 each for the support of churches and 
schools. The Baptists, among the Karens, have done 
equally well, and have recently contributed money to 
endow a college. At Kioto I studied with the keen- 
est interest Mr. Neesima's collegiate school, which 
will one day, I hope, become the leading Christian 
university of the Japanese Empire. It contains at 
present one hundred and fifty young men, half of 
whom are likely to become evangelists to their own 
people. Beneficiary foreign aid in this school to stu- 
dents preparing for the ministry is very limited. 
The membership of the nineteen native Japanese 
churches under the care of the American Board of 
Missions is now about one thousand, of whom more 
than two hundred were recently received. These 
members have contributed for Christian purposes 
over eight dollars each, a sum, as compared with the 
price of labor, equal to forty dollars in the United 
States. (" Brief Notes on Japan," by the Rev. Dr. J. 
D. Davis, of Kioto. "Mis. Her.," Feb., 1883, p. 54.) 



126 OCCIDENT. 

5. When the middle class is reached in India at 
large, and in China, as fully as it has been in Japan, 
the native churches may be expected to become self- 
supporting in an equal degree with those of Japan, 
but not before. 

It is true that there are churches in Japan that have 
sent back funds to the American Board with the re- 
mark : '^ We need no more assistance." Why, then, 
should funds be sent to China and to India ? The 
case is different in China and in India from that in 
Japan, chiefly because in Japan missions have reached 
the middle classes more thoroughly than they have 
in China and in India at large. Even when native 
churches undertake the support of their own preach- 
ers large funds may yet be needed from abroad for 
schools, printing-presses, and medical missions. 

6. The Christian churches of the world should be 
satisfied with nothing less than sending out one or- 
dained missionary for every 50,000 of the accessible 
pagan population of the world. 

7. No church ought to call itself thoroughly ag- 
gressive and evangelical that does not expend for the 
support of missions at large at least one dollar for 
every five it expends on itself. 

In the celebrated Madura Mission, in South India, 
probably the most effectively managed missionary 
centre that I personally studied, this proportion of 
laborers to the population has been the ideal, never 
attained indeed, but unflinchingly held up as the 
standard of duty. On the plan of three ordained 
missionaries to half a million in the foreign field, and 
one to one thousand in the home field, the whole 



THE VANGUAEDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 127 

world might be brought to a knowledge of Chris- 
tianity within fifty years. I believe in a native min- 
istry with all my heart, mind, and strength ; but my 
conviction is that in a city of 50,000 inhabitants, — 
say one as large as Springfield or Hartford, — in a 
pagan land, with all the influences of hereditary mis- 
belief and custom opposing Christianity, there ought 
to be at least one man born and educated on Chris- 
tian shores, and representing sound views. What if 
the native ministry is so enlarged as to give one re- 
ligious teacher to every thousand of the population 
of such a city? One missionary would have under 
him, in some sense as pupils or ecclesiastical subordi- 
nates for the time, fifty native teachers. That num- 
ber is enough for one man to oversee as a bishop of 
souls. In several advanced mission fields, experience 
has shown that the directing power of the foreign 
missionaries was withdrawn too early. I hold up my 
ideal, not as a standard that we are likely to reach 
very soon in practice, but as a proposition favored 
as an ideal by the best students and managers of 
missions, and especially by the ablest missionaries 
themselves. The opinions of missionaries at the front 
in actual conflict with paganism are worth more than 
those of any other body of men as to what we should 
try to do for the heathen world. Seven out of ten 
of the two hundred missionaries I have shaken hands 
with in pagan lands are of the opinion that I do not 
put the ideal of missionary effort too high. 

I plant myself on these propositions, which, I be- 
lieve, have the approval of great secretaries of mis- 
sions : one missionary for every 50,000 of the acces- 



128 OCCIDENT. 

sible pagan population of the world ; one dollar to be 
expended for missions for every five dollars expended 
for ourselves. The foremost American authority on 
missions said to me : " Let the churches expend for 
missions one dollar for every five they expend on 
themselves, and we may hope to put the Bible into 
the hands of every son and daughter of the human 
race within a generation." 

8. At present, these standards of effort are to be 
insisted on with the utmost urgency ; for the size of 
the accessible population of the world is increasing 
enormously out of proportion to the increase of mis- 
sionary funds and laborers. 

Speaking roundly, a man with the Bible may go 
anywhere on earth, to-day. Of course there are ex- 
ceptions to this proposition ; but in the great nations 
in the semi-civilized countries of the pagan world we 
may publicly or privately teach the gospel almost 
everywhere. 

9. Infidelity is occupying the field of the upper 
and middle classes. Imported unbelief, in many 
quarters of India, China, and Japan, is as great a 
danger among educated native circles as hereditary 
misbelief. 

10. The ablest men are needed at the front ; and 
such men have nowhere on earth to-day a wider op- 
portunity for usefulness than in the great cities of 
India, China, and Japan. 

11. Precisely the topics which are most often 
brought to the front in the Occident in religious 
discussions between Christianity and unbelief, are 
those which are at the front in the Orient. 



THE VANGUAEDS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 129 

12. When the whole field is occupied on the plan 
of one missionary for every 50,000 of the accessible 
population, the middle and upper classes mil be 
reached, and the native churches will naturally be- 
come self-supporting. 

13. It is evident, therefore, that the longer the 
churches delay occupying the whole field in this 
thorough manner, the longer will be the effort needed 
and the greater the expense in the conquest of the 
world. 

14. Great expenditures now will make great ex- 
penditures for missions unnecessary in a near future ; 
but small expenditures now may make great expen- 
ditures necessary through a long future. Immense 
losses to missions have often resulted, and may yet 
result, from the churches not taking possession of 
critical hours. 

It is diflBcult to calculate how terribly hard it will 
be to win educated circles in pagan lands to Chris- 
tianity if we allow infidelity to have its own way in 
them for another generation. On this theme, the 
Church, as a whole, is torpid ; and I would have the 
necessity of the case smite the rock of our indiffer- 
ence and cause copious streams to gush forth, — not 
of money only, but of men. 

We are honored this morning by the presence of 
one of the great statesmen among the secretaries of 
missions. I feel impelled to take him by the hand 
in thought ; I venture to take him by the hand in 
reality [rising and taking the hand of Secretary 
Clark], and to ask this assembly to unite with him 
in prayer for the whole world. Longfellow, in the 



130 OCCIDENT. 

last words lie ever wrote, exactly described the con- 
dition of our earth to-day • — 

" Out of the shadows of night 
The world rolls into light ; 
It is daybreak everywhere." 

God deliver us from dawdling at daybreak ! 



LECTURE IV. 

PKOFESSOR z5lLNER's VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM. 

Peofessor Zollner, of Leipsic University, is re- 
garded by spiritualists as their Newton. I purpose 
to prove this morning that he was not a spiritualist, 
but rather a biblical demon ologist. I am aware that 
I am walking over burning plowshares ; but you will 
remember that I am stating the opinions of others, 
and not my own. As to my personal positions, I 
have already had opportunity to be heard on this 
platform, and my sentiments on this topic are un- 
changed. I stand yet precisely in the attitude con- 
cerning this theme in which I stood when, in 1880, I 
discussed spiritualism as a gigantic perhaps; as noth- 
ing more than an if ; a hypothesis, worth, perhaps, 
some attention as a means of guiding us into knowl- 
edge of the unexplored remainders of the human 
constitution and as a reply to materialism, but as 
not yet having reached the dignity of scientific proof 
that spirits, good or evil, exist and now communicate 
with men. I call myself a vehement anti-spiritist ; 
for I deny that there has ever been given scientific 
proof of the reality of spiritistic communications in 
our day ; and I, of course, deny the trustworthiness 
of any such alleged communications as sources of re- 
ligious knowledge. The man who makes both these 



132 OCCIDENT. 

denials is an anti-spiritist, however anxious he may 
be that spiritistic phenomena should be investigated 
for the sake of putting an end to enormous mischief 
in half -educated circles. 

On the topic of what Professor ZoUner called 
transcendental physics, partisan feeling was rolling 
in mountain waves in the university life of Leipsic 
when I visited that city. I took much pains to in- 
form myself as to all sides of the case, and was for- 
tunate enough to make the personal acquaintance of 
Professor Zollner, and of his great opponent. Profes- 
sor Wundt. As to their contest, I conferred with 
Professor Ulrici, of Halle, Professor Delitzsch and 
others, of Leipsic, and many more whom I do not 
care, for reasons of courtesy, to name. Professor Zoll- 
ner had been described to me in London by Slade's 
persecutor, Dr. Ray Lankester, as a recluse, suffering 
from a repulsive disease on one side of his face, and 
as having few pupils and no reputation in the Uni- 
versity. After an introduction to Professor Zollner, 
I found that this picture is a highly colored partisan 
caricature. It is true I was able to buy photographs 
of nearly all the other professors, but could not find 
a picture of Zollner, and so was obliged to call on 
the man with no portrait of him in my mind except 
Lankester's. I took an English edition of the Boston 
Monday Lectures on Spiritualism with me. Perhaps 
this audience will allow me to say that this volume, 
which has not yet been issued as a book in America, 
has been quite carefully analyzed again and again 
by conservative authorities abroad, and that the po- 
sitions taken in it on spiritism have not been de- 



zollner's views on spiritualism. 133 

nounced. One or two obscure conservative author- 
ities in this country misapprehended some of my po- 
sitions, and tried to raise the cry of heresy ; but even 
more conservative authorities abroad, when they 
have seen the lectures in consecutive order and in 
correct reports, have not been thus misled. In Cal- 
cutta the substance of this book was circulated by 
missionaries as an antidote to spiritualism among 
the Hindus. Spiritualism is Potiphar's wife, and my 
name is Joseph. I make this remark chiefly for the 
benefit of the New York " Observer," which once had 
in its hands a certain coat of mine, and gravely and 
slanderously insisted that this was the individual 
himself who had cast off the garment and left it be- 
hind him, for cause. 

Professor Zollner lived with his mother on Gellert 
Strasse in Leipsic, a bachelor, in a stately house of 
the German style. In a study, not palatial, but 
most convenient and spacious, he received his vis- 
itor ; and the cordiality of the man, his ability, and 
his balance were noticeable at the first glance. He 
speaks English with considerable freedom ; but our 
conversation was chiefly in German. Professor Zoll- 
ner was born in 1834. He is a man somewhat above 
the medium height, rather thick-set, of slightly stoop- 
ing but vigorous shoulders, head of good size and 
shape, brunette complexion, dark eyes, and hair of 
tolerably fine texture. His predominant expression 
in face and bearing is that of a cheerful, enthusiastic, 
and incisive intellectual courage. He impresses you 
at once as a man of mental power, and also as one 
of geniality and social warmth. The German words 



134 OCCIDENT. 

Heiterlceit and GemuthUchheit describe the predomi- 
nant moods which he exhibited when I saw him. It 
is true that the right side of his face is enlarged, and 
the cheek and mouth look as if he had some object 
of the size of a small apple between the teeth and 
cheek. There is, however, little or no discoloration 
of the complexion, and, so far as I could learn, no 
disease except this enlargement. His mother, other- 
wise a woman of rather distinguished appearance, 
has an unfortunate wen or tumor on the left side of 
her face. Why do I go into these matters ? Be- 
cause a man like Ray Lankester can stoop to an at- 
tempt to disgust you with Zollner by mentioning 
some little personal defect with which he was born. 
In Professor ZoUner's conversation you soon forget 
the blemish with which he was brought into the 
world. In this photograph of him [showing a pic- 
ture] the likeness is so taken that the unnatural 
shape of the cheek is not prominent. The head, you 
notice, is full and round in all its departments, and 
may be fairly presumed to be the seat of that bal- 
ance of faculties which we call common sense. Ray 
Lankester's picture of Zollner, and other pictures I 
had had drawn of him by his heated German oppo- 
nents, I came to regard as mischievously misleading. 
Among other inquiries which I made of Professor 
Zollner was the question what he thought of various 
recent German books on spiritism. I obtained from 
him a list of German volumes on transcendental 
physics and related themes ; but it was a short one, 
and I was particularly pleased to find how well win- 
nowed it was. Even in Germany many poor books 



zollner's views on spiritualism. 135 

have been issued ; but there is no such deluge of rub- 
bish oil this matter as in England, and especially in 
the United States. After a great deal of conversa- 
tion about German writers on his themes, Professor 
Zollner invited me to call on an American spiritist 
who was then in Leipsic, but whom I shall not name 
here. This American had a reception given him in 
London ; and no less a man than Alfred Russel Wal- 
lace, the great naturalist, affirmed publicly that his 
claims were worthy of attention. Recommended 
thus, he came with his wife to Leipsic, and brought 
with, him a volume which I suppose has not been 
published, although it has been copyrighted, entitled 
the " Christian Spiritual Bible." It is necessary for 
me to describe the character of this book, for I must 
tell you what occurred in my interview with this 
gentleman in presence of Professor Zollner, in order 
that I may show you what his attitude is concern- 
ing our American spiritism. This man was the son 
of a distinguished professor in the United States, 
who was once an atheist, but afterward became a 
spiritualist and a vigorous defender of his new faith. 
The man who issued this book is a person very far 
from having the appearance of a fanatic. I would 
not mention the case in detail, if he had not been a 
person apparently of judicial mind. He is a lawyer, 
and he conversed with Professor Zollner and myself 
in the coolest manner. You know the English tem- 
perament endures in this country wherever the rain- 
fall is heavy ; for instance, in Maine, in Virginia, in 
Kentucky, and in the Champlain Valley. This man 
was of the English- American type, and seemed to be 



136 OCCIDENT. 

very unlikely to be misled by any excitement, emo- 
tional or imaginative. Nevertheless, he claimed that 
he had received from his father, the deceased profes- 
sor, a Bible v/hich is to supersede the old one, and 
that the proof-sheets of this book, in the presence of 
several persons, had been dematerialized, taken in an 
invisible state into the other world, corrected and 
sent back, and that, therefore, there could be no mis- 
take about the revelation. Now, I wished to see how 
a dose of characteristic American spiritistic medicine 
would operate on the sound intellectual stomach of a 
German professor, and, therefore, I consented to ac- 
company Professor Zollner to an interview with this 
redoubtable representative of modern revelations. 

The blasphemous claim is made in the " Christian 
Spiritual Bible " that, in a closed camera at Terre 
Haute, Indiana, a photograph was taken of our as- 
cended Lord. The frontispiece in this book, a copy 
of which I hold in my hand, is a picture which 
claims to have been produced from a negative ob- 
tained in that camera. But, as gentlemen in the 
rear can see [Mr. Cook was holding the book open 
toward them], the picture is nothing but a repro- 
duction of a common lithograph, which, I presume, 
many of us have seen again and again in the print- 
shops ever since we were boys in our teens — the 
exact face ! The claim is further made in this vol- 
ume that photographs in closed cameras have been 
obtained of all the apostles, and of most of the great 
characters of religious history, as materialized in a 
glorified human form. It seems blasphemy to repeat 
these words ; but that is the style of book which was 



zollner's views on spiritualism. 137 

presented to Professor Zollner as resting for its au- 
thority on the spiritistic communications of which he 
had confessed the reality. I supposed the author of 
this book, from all that Professor Zollner had told 
me of him, to be one of the most extravagant of the 
wildest tribe of American spiritists, and I agreed to 
call on him chiefly that I might see what Professor 
Zollner would say in regard to this wildness. This 
man considered himself the representative of his fa- 
ther's present advanced wisdom, and as the instru- 
ment employed by the higher classes of spirits for 
the introduction of enlarged views of Christianity 
into the world. I was shocked and alarmed by the 
claim which he made, that, through the aid of the 
Terre Plaute, Indiana, medium, he had frequently 
seen the risen Saviour of mankind, and had been in- 
trusted, through him, with this Spiritual Bible, with 
copies of which he was to enrich German professors. 
The work was to be given away, and after some 
changes and improvements, was to be published in 
America. He wished distinguished men in Germany 
to send him questions, to which he believed he could 
obtain answers from the same oracle from which all 
his other information had been obtained, I had the 
most vehement disrespect for that oracle of which in 
America I had heard only evil, and I could hardly 
keep myself in a mood of social courtesy as he went 
on describing what he had learned there and at other 
similar American shrines. 

In noticing this topic of the " Christian Spiritual 
Bible " I am not speaking quite at random ; for the 
latest spiritistic fashion is to produce Bibles of this 



188 OCCIDENT. 

kind. There was given to me tlie other day the pro- 
spectus of a mighty book, as large, nearly, as one of 
our pulpit Bibles, containing revelations which, it is 
claimed, are to supersede Christianity. It is called 
" Oahspe," and is represented to have been written 
by the dictation of angels through a certain New 
York medium. It is not worth buying, even as a 
literary curiosity. It is worth mentioning, however, 
side by side with this other Christian Bible of the 
spiritual sort, in order that you may see from the 
floating of these air-bubbles which way certain cur- 
rents run. The bubbles amount to nothing, but the 
currents amount to much. 

In the interview with the American spiritualist, as 
I wished to see the effect of nonsense on ZoUner, I 
remained as quiet as I could. Our expounder spoke 
only in English ; but ZoUner understands this fairly 
well, and he maintained a most surly silence as the 
flood of the lawyer's talk went on. According to 
this Spiritual Bible there have been four incarnations 
of our Lord; the first in Isaac, the second in the 
author of the Bhagvat Geeta, the third in Sakya 
Muni, and the last in Christ. Our Lord, therefore, 
personally taught the Old Testament religion and 
also that of the uncorrupted Indian Scriptures, as 
well as that of the New Testament. In the latter 
only the Gospels are to be taken as wholly author- 
itative representations of religious truth. This man 
had seen his father, as a materialized spirit, trans- 
form water into wine. Some of the manufactured 
liquid was shown to us in a vial. Besides the pho- 
tograph of the ascended Christ, which had been ob- 



ZOLLNEil's VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM. 139 

tained in a closed camera, at least twenty other pho- 
tographs of the leaders of the world's religion in 
past ages had been obtained in the same way. Zoll- 
ner plainly grew more and more impatient as this 
narration proceeded ; but the personal appearance of 
the narrator and of his wife was so respectable that 
we could not, at a first interview, venture to call 
them dupes to their faces. Alfred Russel Wallace, 
as we were reminded, had indorsed the claims of this 
American as worth attention, and it appeared to be 
his object to obtain some good word for himseK from 
Zollner; but he did not get it. In my presence 
ZoUner politely excused himself from acceding to the 
rather urgent demand that he would distribute copies 
of the Scriptural Bible to several learned men in 
Germany. 

The moment we were out of. the room and walk- 
ing together on the street, Professor Zollner, with 
German warmth and enthusiasm, took your lecturer 
by the arm and burst forth into a denunciation of 
the atrocious absurdity of building convictions like 
those of the man we had just seen on such evidence 
as had been placed before us. I said little, for I 
wished to notice what the natural posture of Pro- 
fessor Zollner's mind would be under the circum- 
stances. I wished to observe how the huge and nau- 
seating dose which had been administered would act 
on his intellectual stomach. It was a most power- 
ful and swift emetic. Zollner admitted that he had 
himself witnessed enough to make the theory that 
spirits can assume a material form credible to him- 
self, but he thought that all we had heard was bet- 



140 OCCIDENT. 

ter evidence of tlie fact of modern demoniacal pos- 
session than of anything else. "One revelation is 
enough," said he, "and our conscience and reason 
are given us to be used here and now with all cau- 
tion and courage, no matter what comes to us from 
other spheres of existence." His conviction was that 
only a man utterly unscientific and deficient in com- 
mon sense could give credence to communications 
such as are contained in that volume. 

It was as a Christian spiritualist that Zollner had 
been approached by this representative of American 
revelations. It was as a believer in Christianity and 
as a man of science that Zollner repelled the preten- 
sions of the " Christian Spiritual Bible." I finally 
told Zollner that what we had heard was not an un- 
fair specimen of much that American spiritualists 
are familiar with in speech and in print. I enlarged 
on the moral mischief spiritualism is doing in vari- 
ous quarters of my own country, and on the desira- 
bleness of some scientific explanation of its alleged 
facts as a means of preventing the spread of poison- 
ous opinions and practices among thoughtless and. 
ill-informed people. Zollner had lately had many 
correspondents who had sent him news from Amer- 
ica, giving rose -colored views of the condition of 
spiritualism there ; but for the mass of letters which 
had reached him he expressed only intellectual dis- 
dain and moral disgust. I told him what I could of 
the obscure but terribly real underground work of 
spiritualism in America, and of the horror which its 
practical effects as a religious faith inspire even in 
many who think its phenomena worthy of scientific 
investigation. 



zollner's views on spieitualism. 141 

Zollner admitted frankly tJiat^ to his mind^ the ex- 
istence and agency of evil spirits were much better 
proved than those of good. The author of this book 
to which Zolhier's attention had just been called 
had denounced the mass of American spiritualists as 
"the dupes of earth-spirits or demons," and Zollner 
seemed inclined to think the author himself a similar 
dupe. The emetic worked with such power that I 
had little doubt left of the intellectual health of Pro- 
fessor Zollner 's mental stomach. Nor did I wonder 
at his disgust at finding himself quoted as an author- 
ity by spiritualists of a type with which he has not 
the slightest affinity. 

Next morning I called on Zollner at his rooms, 
and he showed me the larger part of the original rec- 
ords of his famous experiments. I saw the cord in 
which abnormal knots were tied ; the doubly and 
trebly sealed slates, between which messages were 
written ; the pieces of coin which are said to have 
passed through a table in a manner supposed to illus- 
trate the suspension of the laws of the impenetrabil- 
ity of matter ; the straps of leather knotted under 
Zollner 's hands in a way explicable, according to 
Zollner, only by the supposition that space has a 
fourth dimension ; the impression of two feet on 
sooted paper pasted inside two sealed slates ; the un- 
injured wooden rings which were placed around the 
standard of a card - table ; and, finally, this table 
itself, a stout structure of varnished beechen-wood, 
which, according to the account given of one of the 
experiments, wholly disappeared, and then fell down 
from the top of the room in which Zollner and other 



142 OCCIDENT. 

persons were sitting. The chief facts, or alleged 
facts, which are detailed in Zollner's scientific trea- 
tises, as observed by himself and Professors Weber, 
Scheibner, and Fechner, he described to me with 
much minuteness, with the original instruments be- 
fore us to make the explanation more vivid. He in- 
sisted much on his theory that there is a fourth 
dimension of space, and said that, if he were to con- 
tinue his experiments, it would be to substantiate this 
position. From mathematicians and philosophers of 
various schools he had collected numerous testimonies 
in support of this theory, on which he relied for the 
explanation of many physical phenomena, like the 
penetrability and disappearance of matter. Zollner's 
whole manner in discussing his experiments was cir- 
cumspect and candid, and yet marked by a degree of 
natural enthusiasm awakened by the vast possible 
issues of discoveries in transcendental physics. 

Let me part from this theme by describing a sa- 
cred scene. Professor Bruhns, a distinguislied astron- 
omer of Leipsic University, was buried while I was 
in the city; and, under the blossoming orchards 
around his house, it was my fortune to be standing 
in a crowd near Professor Zollner, when his mind 
was greatly solemnized by his having parted recently 
from an honored colleague. I said to him : " Pro- 
fessor Zollner, what does your science of transcen- 
dental physics lead 3^ou to believe as to the Christian 
miracles?" I remember that there, under the clear 
German sky, with that corpse lying in its coffin not 
far from us in the parlor, where Professor Luthardt 
was delivering the funeral oration, Zolhier turned 



zollneb's views on spiritualism. 143 

and said, in the presence of many : " The reality of 
the Christian miracles, as indubitable historical facts, 
is my deepest scientific conviction." More than a 
dozen times he said that to me, privately ; but I re- 
call with especial distinctness his remark there at 
the edge of the grave, into which he has since gone 
himself. 

Zollner stood in all our conversations on definitely 
Christian ground ; yet he was not regarded as an ac- 
tive member of any church in Germany. I suppose, 
of course, that he had been confirmed in his youth, 
and was a member of some state church ; but he was 
by no means considered as a leader of religious life 
in Leipsic. His views may be summarized in seven 
propositions as to the moral and religious bearings of 
the facts of psychical science. 

1. The only safe guide in dealing with spiritual- 
ism is the Bible. 

2. Modern ages are in need of all the scriptural 
warnings against necromancy and commerce with 
evil spirits. 

Professor Phelps has published an article with the 
title : " Ought the Pulpit to Ignore Spiritualism ? " 
and his answer is, " No." I showed that article to 
no less a man than Professor Christlieb, who brought 
it back to me and said : "I indorse every word of 
it." I have heard him teach his owm theological 
students that demoniacal possession is a modern fact. 
I am giving his opinion, not mine. " Keep your 
eyes open," he said to me, "and when you are in 
India study the topics of magic and sorcery and demo- 
niacal possession. Ask veteran missionaries whether 



144 OCCIDENT. 

they do not think there is something like demoniacal 
possession on the earth to-day." I have done that, 
and I have found that about seven out of ten oi these 
acutest students of paganism do believe in demoni- 
acal possession, and affirm that they can distinguish 
cases of it from nervous disease. About three out of 
ten have told me that such cases collapse on investi- 
gation. 

3. ZoUner held Scriptural views as to good spirits 
as well as to evil spirits ; but he insisted that modern 
facts which prove the existence and agency of the 
former are few and far between. 

4. The existence of evil spirits and the possibility 
and actuality of their communications with men he 
regarded as a demonstrated reality in our century. 

5. The outcome of transcendental physics he firmly 
believed will be the destruction of the anti-super- 
naturalistic philosophies of our day. 

6. He was confident that it will also be the justifi- 
cation of scriptural views of miracles, inspiration, 
and prophecy. 

7. That the supernatural, in the biblical sense of 
the word, is a reality, he described as his deepest 
scientific conviction. 

Professor ZoUner closed our protracted interviews 
by impressive reiterations of his opinions on tran- 
scendental physics, and of his confidence that his po- 
sitions could not be successfully attacked, either on 
scientific or on biblical ground. His opponents, he 
admitted, were many and influential, but tbeir criti- 
cisms amounted to little in presence of the combined 
testimony of Weber, Scheibner, and Fechner, to mat- 



zollner's views on spiritualism. 145 

ters of fact. Lutliardt, as a great theologian, was a 
believer in demonology, and so were many of the 
professors of theology in Germany ; and yet Zollner 
felt himself obliged to complain of the uncandid atti- 
tude of Christian teachers toward his reassertion of 
what he conceived to be simply the biblical view of 
good and evil spirits. His hearers at the University, 
he admitted, were few at present ; but he hoped he 
had some hearers in the world at large. In the arena 
of science, in spite of determined opposition, he be- 
lieved that Professor Crookes, of England, and him- 
self, were, and would continue to be, victors in main- 
taining that there is scientific modern evidence of the 
existence of good and evil disembodied spirits. De- 
nying the trustworthiness of spiritistic communica- 
tions as sources of religious knowledge, he was rather 
a biblical demonologist than a spiritualist. He be- 
lieved that the progress of transcendental physics 
will bring into the field of Christian apologetics in 
another century a new host of facts rendering more 
invincible than ever the high fortresses of Christian 
truth, which have so often seen battle, but never de- 
feat. At the end of our last interview, Professor 
Zollner, in the clear morning sunlight, sat down at 
his organ, on one side of his study, and played and 
sang Luther's hymn : " Ein feste Burg ist unser 
Gott." I was to see him no more on this side of 
the grave. A few months later, under the Southern 
Cross, news came to me that he had passed into the 
world into which all men haste. 

10 



OPPONENTS OF PROFESSOR ZOLLNER'S 
VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM, 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

AMERICAN AND FOREIGN TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIFTH LECTURE IN THE 

BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 

TREMONT TEMPLE, FEBRUARY 5, 1883. 



" A scliool-house on every hill, and no saloon in the valley." — 
Iowa. 

" The eye of the age is fixing its gaze upon constitutional prohi- 
bition as the goal towards which society is advancing. The index 
finger of the century points to it." — Daniel Dorchester. 



"According to my judgment, no one has succeeded in explaining 
the facts attested by Zollner and other German professors by the 
theory of deception, illusion, or jugglery. Nor has any one distinctly 
shown that these facts can be explained only by the action of spirits 
not in the fiesh." — Ulrici, Letter of August 16, 1881. 

"Proinde ita persuasum sit, intestabilem, irritam, inanem esse, ha- 
bentem tamen quasdam veritatis umbras." — Pliny, on Magic. 



PRELUDE V. 

AMEEICAN ANT> FOREIGN TEMPERAKCE CEEEDS. 

The law of averages, as exhibited in the experi- 
ence of life assurance companies during the last forty 
years, has once for all triumphantly justified the tem- 
perance principle of total abstinence. [Applause.] 
Among serious and thoroughly well-informed per- 
sons debate is over on this matter. Yes, my luxuri- 
ous friend ; yes, my moderate drinker in the pulpit 
[laughter], you are marked men, because benighted 
and belated. [Applause.] When I was in London, 
I took much pains to ascertain exactly the facts as 
to the experience of British life assurance societies 
in making a distinction between moderate drinkers 
and total abstainers. Every one knows or ought to 
know that for nearly half a century now many of the 
best life assurance societies of England have insured 
moderate drinkers and total abstainers in separate 
sections, and that a bonus has been paid to the sections 
made up of total abstainers of seven, thirteen, seven- 
teen, and in some cases twenty-three per cent, over that 
paid to the sections of moderate drinkers. 

Here are a few commercial facts of the largest phil- 
anthropic significance. I have in my possession an 
original letter from one of the foremost agencies for 
life assurance in London, and the statement is con- 



150 OCCIDENT. 

tained in it that for fifteen years the society has been 
accustomed to pay every five years bonuses to its 
two sections. One of these is made up of total ab- 
stainers, and the other of moderate drinkers. The 
result has been, during the past sixteen years, that 
there have been issued 9,345 policies on the lives of 
moderate drinkers, that is, of those who are not 
strictly abstinent in the use of alcoholic liquors, and 
3,396 on the lives of total abstainers. Of the former 
524 have died, but 91 only of the latter, or less than 
half the proportionate number, which, of course, 
would be 190. Less than one half the number of 
abstainers have died, compared with the number 
that died among non-abstainers who were strictly 
temperate, and this in an experience of sixteen 
years ! I hold in my hand the circulars of a very 
celebrated life assurance society, which I shall, not 
name, for fear you will say I wish to advertise it, 
although it is not an American society, and I read in 
this official document that in 1872, 1875, and 1878 
the bonus to the temperance section was fourteen per 
cent, higher than in the general department, while 
the bonus for 1881 in the temperance section was 
twenty-three per cent, higher. I will name a single 
one of the great life assurance companies in England 
because its reputation is well established and I can- 
not be suspected of having any improper motive for 
giving its career publicity. I refer to the United 
Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Insti- 
tution. In England its experience is often cited to 
show the superior value of teetotal lives, as compared 
with those of moderate drinkers. The institution 



TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 151 

insures members in two sections : one in which all 
the members are total abstainers ; in the other, mod- 
erate drinkers, — all intemperate persons being, of 
course, excluded. The two sections are exactly alike 
in every other respect, about 20,000 lives being in- 
sured in the General Section, and 10,000 in the Tem- 
perance Section. Returns of the expected and actual 
claims in both sections for fifteen years, from 1864 
till 1875, show that in the General Section 3,450 
deaths were expected, and that 3,444 took place; 
whereas, in the Temperance Section the expected 
deaths were 2,002, and the actual deaths only 1,433. 
During the year 1879 the expected claims in the 
Temperance Section were 195 for X 40, 844; the ac- 
tual claims were 164 for <£ 28,690. In the General 
Section 305 were expected for £64,343, the actual 
having been 326 for X 74,950. The quinquennial 
bonuses in the Temperance Section have been seven- 
teen and one half per cent, greater than those in the 
General Section. 

To summarize details which I might easily make 
voluminous, the experience of nearly forty years 
and the insurance of more than 100,000 lives in so- 
cieties making a distinction between temperate non- 
abstainers and total abstainers have proved that un- 
der the law of averages a bonus of from seventeen to 
twenty-three per cent, must be paid to the sections 
of total abstainers. 

Where is the church, where is wealthy society, 
where are our circles of culture and advanced 
thought, where are our serious and intelligent young 
men, that they are not awake to these stern facts of 



152 OCCIDENT. 

mere business ? I have been citing to you not tem- 
perance documents, but the reports of life assurance 
societies. They are not fanatical organizations ; they 
are not governed by this or that pet theory as to tem- 
perance reform. Here is cool, stern business sagacity 
applied to one of the most complicated commercial 
matters ; and the outcome we have in this great prop- 
osition, sustained by the most exact application of 
the law of averages, that nearly twenty-five per cent, 
bonus must be paid to total abstainers above what is 
paid to moderate drinkers. Of course many of these 
total abstainers have not been such for all their lives. 
Their health may have been injured in many cases 
by early indulgences. By and by, when these soci- 
eties come to have sections filled by men who have 
been total abstainers from birth, the average of bo- 
nuses will be higher to the temperance sections. 
You ought, also, to keep in mind constantly that the 
section not made up of total abstainers is not a sec- 
tion of drunkards, but that it consists of those who 
are merely moderate drinkers, respectable men, most 
of them only wine drinkers. 

For one, I regard this state of the facts concerning 
the law of averages in life assurance societies as alto- 
gether the most incisive argument that can just now 
be named in support of the principle of total absti- 
nence. I have in my possession original letters from 
secretaries of life assurance societies in the northern 
and southern hemispheres. I refrain from citing a 
single American life assurance company, because I 
will not weaken this argument by allowing you to 
suspect that I have been asked to publish these facts. 



TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 153 

I beg you to inyestigate this matter carefully for 
yourselves. The law of averages in life assurance 
societies is now the pedestal of adamant on which 
stands triumphant for all future time, in the name of 
science, the abused and once even humiliated princi- 
ple of total abstinence. [Applause.] 

British and American temperance methods and 
creeds differ somewhat, to our disadvantage. Un- 
doubtedly, we have carried the legal remedies for in- 
temperance further than Europe has done. -No por- 
tion of the foreign part of the world that I have vis- 
ited has shown me anything like our advance in tem- 
perance legislation. No portion has gone beyond 
what we have in some past times attained in the use 
of the moral method of repressing intemperance ; 
but at present we are fanning the air with the legal 
wing of the temperance reform and seem to have 
forgotten the moral wing in large degree. British 
temperance circles at the present moment are more 
emphatic in church efforts and in the endeavor to 
produce, through secular organizations, a right im- 
pression on the masses of the population than we 
are. 

Allow me to raise a serious note of warning against 
trying to fly the temperance cause with one wing. 
Whenever we have used only the legal wing or only 
the moral wing, the flight of the temperance reform 
has been a sorry spiral. It alwa^^s must be such 
under similar circumstances. In the temperance 
movement we have mere agitation pitted against av- 
arice and appetite. Agitation is a spasmodic force 
at best; appetite and avarice are both constant 



154 OCCIDENT. 

forces. It requires great assistance from Almighty 
Providence to obtain the attention of a whole state 
or nation ; and, when you have secured this, it re- 
quires great assistance to keep the drowsy public 
attentive long enough to carry an election. Agita- 
tion in church and state is our chief force a^gainst the 
solid ranks of the whiskey rings and against the im- 
passive brutal forces of appetite. With a fifth of our 
population in cities, I beg leave to say that there is 
not a feather in either of the two great temperance 
wings that we can dispense with. One of the most 
mischievous things in the temperance cause appears 
to me to be the fight of the feathers with each other 
[applause] ; not only wing with wing, but feather 
with feather in a single wing. 

I had thought of putting upon this board [refer- 
ring to a blackboard in front of the speaker's desk], 
and perhaps I had better do so, a graphic illustration 
of what I mean by two wings. [Taking the chalk, 
Mr. Cook drew a representation of two wings, say- 
ing, as he did so] : If that is the right wing, or legal 
wing, I should call the lower feather of it the civil 
damage law ; then I should say, above that we have 
local option ; and, above that, legislative prohibition ; 
and, above that, constitutional prohibition ; and, 
above that, woman's temperance vote. [Applause.] 
And now, if, on the other side, I must outline, in 
reverse order, the five feathers of the moral wing, I 
should put, first of all, at the top, church temperance 
organizations ; next the efforts of secular temperance 
societies of all kinds ; next, temperance instruction 
in schools ; next, the example of what we call the 



TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 155 

leading classes, among tiie highly educated or the 
very wealthy ; and last, business prudence, or your 
desire to be relieved from taxes caused by the rav- 
ages of intemperance. What I assert is, that we 
cannot fly without the use of all the feathers in each 
of these wings, and that it is suicidal policy to try to 
fly without a fair and bold balancing of both the 
wings at once. The temperance cause cannot make 
the circuit of the earth in the atmosphere of free in- 
stitutions unless both the moral and the legal wings 
are used unitedly and constantly. 

Look for an instant at the smallest lower feather 
of the moral wing — business prudence. I put in 
one hand all the money we spend for our civil 
service. It is an enormous amount ; about 400 
millions a year. Will that weigh down what we 
spend for liquor ? I put in this right-hand scale the 
liquor bill of the United States, and the left-hand 
scale goes up. I add to what we pay for tlie civil 
service all we pay for the Army ; the left hand goes 
up yet. All we pay for the Navy ; it goes up yet. 
All we pay to Congress, including the river and har- 
bor appropriation bills [laughter] ; it goes up yet. 
All we pay to state governments ; it goes up yet. 
All we pay to county governments and to city gov- 
ernments ; this scale, with all these weights in it, 
goes up yet. I add all we pay to town governments 
and for common school education out of the taxes on 
school districts, and yet this scale goes up. The 
national census bureau informs us that about 700 
millions is the amount put into the left-hand scale 
under the circumstances I have named ; but the most 



156 



OCCIDENT. 



careful statisticians say, and tlie New York " Trib- 
une " brought these facts before the public, not long 
ago, that at least 800 millions is the annual liquor 
bill of the United States. [Sensation.] That is 
one feather of this mighty wing. 

I undertake to maintain unflinchingly what Mr. 
Gladstone has said, that the intemperance of the 
Anglo-Saxon races, especially of Englishmen, Scotch- 
men, and Americans, has injured us more than war, 
pestilence, and famine. We are the most drunken 
nations on earth. It is not too much to say that, if 
we could shake off intemperance as thoroughly as 
the Hindus and Turks have done, we should probably 
double the income of the United States and of the 
United Kingdom. 

The Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics has af- 
firmed solemnly in an ofiicial document, that intem- 
perance enters as a leading cause into eighty-four 
per cent, of the crimes brought to the notice of the 
law in this State ; and yet his Excellency, the pres- 
ent Governor of Massachusetts, did not do himself 
the honor of mentioning intemperance when, lately, 
in a long message, he passed a fine-tooth comb through 
the hair of this Commonwealth in search for abuses. 
[Loud and continuous applause.] 

Not to go into detail through all the five different 
departments of each wing, but asking this intelligent 
assembly to develop for itself, face to face with our 
possible American future, every one of the minor 
portions of my theme, I pause, for an instant, on a 
comparatively new temperance measure. 

For one, 1 believe most thoroughly in constitu- 



TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 15T 

tioiial prohibition. [Applause.] It is a superior 
form of local option. It takes temperance legislation 
out of the hands of political parties, and secures for 
it tlie support of the people at large. I have spoken 
for this reform on the platforms of Kansas and Iowa 
when it was a beleagured cause. It was my fortune 
once, in the public park of Topeka, with Governor 
St. John as chairman, to defend constitutional prohi- 
bition when it was exceedingly unpopular ; and yet I 
felt that the future was in it. I do not know how it 
is that on this seaboard we sometimes do not now 
seem to feel the throb of the mighty future of the 
Republic as our fathers did, and as the people do yet 
on the Mississippi. Does the breadth of the West in- 
spire great ideas? We, too, have broad outlooks. 
We have a great river running past our wharves. 
We call it the Atlantic Ocean. We ought to be 
able to look across it and see that our temperance 
example is doing good or evil to the ends of the 
earth. But the upper half of the Mississippi Val- 
ley appears to have a more intense care for the future 
of its population than we have for that of ours. It 
listens to the tramp of the coming generations. The 
sound of centuries yet to be is in the ears of Iowa 
and Kansas. There is a mighty rustle on the prairies 
in favor of antidotes for one of the hugest evils of 
our civilization. The two young states which pos- 
sess the fattest portions of our continent are making 
up their minds that they will not allow the cancers 
of the whiskey rings to eat into their vitals. No tem- 
porary defeat will tame the reformatory spirit of 
these commonwealths. They are leading our nation 



158 OCCIDENT. 

and the world in temperance legislation. My con- 
viction is that, if a score of the American states suc- 
ceed in putting constitutional prohibition on a firm 
basis, it will ultimately become a national policy. 
[Applause.] There are at least ten states in the 
Union whose legislatures are now being petitioned 
vigorously for constitutional prohibition, — Wiscon- 
sin, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, 
Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts. 
We have, thank Heaven, about twenty states that 
are not yet under the heel of great and corrupt cities. 
As agitation for reform goes on, they may possibly 
pass constitutional prohibitory laws and make them 
effective in practice. Let ten states succeed with 
constitutional prohibition, and ultimately a majority 
of the states will succeed. Let the day come, and 
may God speed it, when constitutional prohibition 
shall be the law in a majority of states of this Union, 
and it will become a national measure. [Applause.] 
You say this is a wild hope. Constitutional national 
prohibition is too great a blessing to expect from 
commerce, from philanthropy, or from politics. It 
is not too great a blessing to expect from the Chris- 
tian Church. [Applause.] . 

What is the chief mischief in the Church in rela- 
tion to temperance ? We are all under the volun- 
tary system, and sometimes men who are tipplers 
carry large bags. [Laughter.] I am in no pulpit. 
I am a friend of the pulpits of the country, and am 
proud of the courage of our ministry ; but, if I must 
tell the whole truth, as I try always to do, I shall be 
obliged to say that, in certain luxurious circles, espe- 



TEMPEEANCE CEEEDS. 159 

cially in the great cities, there is a large amount of 
wine drinking in what are called the upper portions 
of society, and so it is hard to preach total absti- 
nence. It is hard to illustrate it by personal prac- 
tice. It ought not in this country to be hard; but I 
fear it is becoming harder than it was a few years 
ago for a minister to defend unflinchingly total ab- 
stinence in the presence of the more luxurious mem- 
bers of his congregation. There are some easy and 
careless men, who love to be called evangelical and 
thoroughly genuine in their Christianity, who will 
have wines in large variety, and sometimes stronger 
liquors, on their tables. This is not true merely of 
the Pacific Slope ; it is true of the Mississippi Val- 
ley, the Middle States, and even of New England. 
These great obstacles to the progress of the temper- 
ance cause we must uproot decisively by a tornado 
of popular sentiment rising outside the luxurious 
churches. You cannot expect such churches to re- 
form themselves. The people at large must breathe 
out their indignation against men who stand in the 
high places of the Church and rent their property 
for the infamous purposes of the whiskey rings. 
[Applause.] They must breathe out their indigna- 
tion against high social examples set in defiance of 
the dictates of science and even of the commercial 
experience of our time. 

The Church of England Temperance Society, not 
a fanatical body at all, has two sections — one for 
total abstainers and one for moderate drinkers. But 
when it organizes a Rescue Section, and sends agents 
down into the slums to recover drunkards, it insists 



160 OCCIDENT. 

always that these men shall take a pledge of abso- 
lutely total abstinence. I maintain that not only 
every preacher, but every church-member, rich or 
poor, and most especially if his position as an em- 
ployer of labor makes him a trellis-work over which 
many lives run, should be a member of the res- 
cue section of society. [Applause.] This English 
Church temperance organization, with a double ba- 
sis, is now being imitated on our shores. That most 
honored veteran in the temperance cause, William E. 
Dodge, I believe, gave the imitation his blessing in 
New York the other day, after hearing Bishop 
Clark's public defense of it. I cannot quite give 
it mine. I do not believe in its pledge as to moder- 
ate use of alcohol. I never should organize a tem- 
perance society on that basis myself. Nevertheless, 
I cite this movement in the Church of England Tem- 
perance Society to show you that, although it is not 
fanatical and has a double basis^ it always puts total 
abstinence into its rescue work. It insists on the 
pledge of total abstinence for the young. Let us 
stand on this lofty example. 

Our soft society, connected with fashionable and 
wealthy ecclesiastical establishments, dearly likes to 
know what is the sense of the upper ten thousand 
in the ecclesiastical world. The sense is total absti- 
nence for all who go into the rescue work of society ; 
the sense is total abstinence for the young ; the sense 
is that the preacher who invites the young convert 
to the table has no right to put before him the intoxi- 
cating cup. A great preacher in London was defend- 
ing his wine drinking to me, and I said : " Suppose 



TEMPERANCE CREEDS. 161 

John B. Gough were a poor inebriate in London and 
were to be converted, which church would it be bet- 
ter for him to join, — yours, where you set him the 
example of moderate drinking, and where you put 
before him, at your own table, intoxicating liquor; 
or would it be better for him to join Mr. Spurgeon's 
church, where the pastor sets the example of total 
abstinence?" That argument touched him, although 
he was invulnerable to every other. That is the 
argument we are to apply, under our free church 
system, to the conscience of every man and woman 
who would belong to the rescue section of religious 
society. Let us make every feather of the moral 
wing and of the legal wing of the temperance reform 
broad and strong. Let the two smite the air side by- 
side, and so support each other, and carry this ma- 
jestic cause proudly through the vexed atmosphere 
of history. In a better day than ours, woman's tem- 
perance vote will be to the whiskey rings what light- 
ning is to the oak. [Applause.] 
11 



LECTURE V. 

OPPONENTS OF PEOFESSOR ZOLLNER'S VIEWS ON 
SPIEITUALISM. 

The trustworthiness of so-called spiritistic commi:!- 
nications has been disproved over and over. There 
is really no scientific evidence of their reality. But, 
granting their reality, there is predeterminate effort, 
apparently, on the part of any disembodied agencies 
that communicate with us to prove that their own 
communications are not trustworthy. The supernat- 
ural is more than the superhuman. If I were - to 
grant the reality of the alleged facts of spiritism, 
they would prove only the reality of the superhu- 
man, and not of the supernatural, in the biblical 
sense. I repel, therefore, the fear of those who think 
that, to investigate this subject, is to throw open the 
whole question of the trustworthiness of the Scrip- 
tures. It is not that at all ; it is not that in the mind 
of serious investigators of this topic, of whom there 
are not a few in England and Germany. It is not 
that at all in the mind of the great theologians in 
Europe, who, as I happen to know, are, many of 
them, believers in the fact of demoniacal possession 
in our day. Let the fact be proved. Let it be 
shown that there is scientific modern evidence of the 
truth of the biblical doctrines concerning good and 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNER's VIEWS. 163 

evil spirits, and all tiiat we shall then need to do is 
to teach these doctrines without abatement. 

Scientific supernaturalism is a star yet below the 
horizon in the sky of exact research ; nevertheless, 
I believe it to be a light which is sure to rise, and 
which will probably illuminate the terrestrial, as well 
as the celestial, outlook of the next century. 

I am, however, an anti-spiritualist, because I think 
there is already evidence enough that, if spiritism 
should turn out to be more than a perhaps^ it would 
be simply a set of proofs that the biblical doctrine 
concerning evil spirits is true to the facts of modern 
experience. Undoubtedly, good spirits are all around 
us. On biblical authority, I believe that we are 
surrounded by a cloud of witnesses in the invisible 
world ; and I am perfectly willing that this should be 
shown to be true on modern evidence also, for I am 
not at all alarmed by the prospect that a new reve- 
lation will come out of these chatterings and peep- 
ings, which have for centuries been before the world, 
and have produced nothing worth mentioning seri- 
ously, except moral disorder. 

But, my friends, I am exceedingly anxious that 
you Should see that the opposition to any assertion of 
the reality of these phenomena is vigorous, acute, 
profound, and no doubt the most thoroughly so in 
the loftiest quarters. I took great pains to meet 
the opponents of Professor ZoUner. Possibly I 
shall not be violating confidence if I give you the 
opinion of a distinguished German professor as to 
what the present policy of the pulpit should be con- 
cerning spiritualism. He is a revered teacher whose 



164 OCCIDENT. 

name is known on both sides of the sea. Zollner was 
his colleague in Leipsic University. I shall never 
forget his gestures, as he expressed his opinion. 
" This," said he, " is the proper attitude to take as 
yet concerning spiritism," and he put his hands over 
both ears and shut his eyes tightly and closed his 
mouth. If I were to shut my mouth, 1 should keep 
my eyes open ; and if I were to shut mouth and 
eyes, I should keep my ears open. Probably this 
professor meant to be humorous. A full statement 
of his opinion would give a very different impression 
from that which you receive from this anecdote. 
Nevertheless, there is in the world a great amount of 
similar and not humorous evasiveness. I must say 
that I regard it as unmanly, unscientific, and un- 
timely. There is such enormous mischief being done 
by spiritualism that on this topic we have no right 
to shut either ears or eyes or lips. For one, I pro- 
pose to assert liberty for all three of these organs, 
and especially for the human reason and conscience 
in the examination by the scientific method of any 
facts that may come before us. 

Professor Wundt, of Leipsic, is the great opponent 
of Zollner. The result of our conversation gavfe me 
nothing with which to rebut ZoUner's claims as to 
matters of fact. I asked for references to the best 
German literature against spiritualism, and I beg 
you to notice that the only reply I received from this 
chief antagonist of Zollner was that the ablest and 
most conclusive reply to Zollner anywhere made, as 
yet, was that by our Professor Stanley Hall, who 
lately was a student at Leipsic. Most of us know 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNER's VIEWS. 165 

what Professor Hall has published; and, if that is 
the best that can be said against ZoUner, I, for one, 
think the topic is yet worthy of investigation. I have 
high respect for Professor Hall ; and am thankful for 
many facts which he has brought to our knowledge ; 
but nobody here regards his reply as really ade- 
quate in this case. I asked Wundt if ZoUner was to 
be considered insane. I was very much interested in 
the answer that Wundt — not forgetting his honor 
— would make to this inquiry. I did not think 
more highly of the man when he cringed a little and 
said, rather lightly, that, since the publication of his 
last volume of scientific treatises, Zollner must un- 
doubtedly be considered as probably crazy. I had 
heard it vehemently asserted by two or three irre- 
sponsible private students at Leipsic that Zollner 
had one or two relatives who had been insane at 
some distance back in his line of ancestry; but I 
could procure no definite facts whatever to show that 
Wundt's light charge had behind it a scintilla of evi- 
dence. When a man brings forward a statement of 
this kind and does it lightly, the talk is a boomerang, 
such as the savages in Australia use, and smites the 
thrower. When I told him that I had seen Bella- 
chini, the court conjurer of the Emperor William, 
perform his best exploits, Wundt went on to affirm 
that the feats of this magicia,n were as inexplicable as 
those of Slade. " I cannot explain what Bellachini 
does," said Wundt ; " nor can I explain what Slade 
does, and what Zollner and three or four other sci- 
entific German professors say they saw." I asked 
him if he supposed the affidavit of Bellachini, that 



166 OCCIDENT. 

he cannot explain what Slade does, was genuine ; 
and he replied that he believed it was. The doc- 
ument was quoted everywhere, and Bellachini had 
never denied its authenticity. I happened to have 
a copy of the aJSidavit with me in the appendix to 
the English edition of Zollner's " Transcendental 
Physics," and called Wundt's attention to the paper. 
As I handed him the book, he saw Zollner's name on 
it, and asked what book this was, and cringed again, 
in a peculiar way, as he read the title-page. He ad- 
mitted that many German theologians believe that 
there is modern evidence of the existence and agency 
of evil spirits; but these teachers, he thought, were 
only half enlightened. The secretary of Du Bois 
Reymond had explained and paralleled Slade's slate- 
writing. Professor Wundt believed that an explana- 
tion of the methods of performing this trick was for 
sale in Berlin at a high price. Ulrici, who had at 
first discussed, with much earnestness, Zollner's facts, 
was now, according to Wundt, disposed to withdraw 
a little from his earlier positions, and to represent 
spiritualism as a question, indeed, and a scientific 
question, and yet as only a question. 

Allow me to ask you to notice that I am rather 
inclined to believe that what is called slate-writing 
in spiritistic circles is a trick. Nevertheless, I have 
never seen any good proof that it is a fraud, and I am 
searching for such proof. Many of you have found 
it, perhaps, and are perfectly satisfied that the feat 
can be explained. I know that a kind of slate- writ- 
ing is produced by conjurers and performers of the 
art of legerdemain ; but in Germany, though many 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNER'S VIEWS. 167 

such imitations have appeared, none of them seem to 
be accepted as really genuine parallels. I have my- 
self seen slate-writing produced under circumstances 
which I once detailed before this assembly, and which 
persons who were experts in that investigation pro- 
nounced inexplicable at the time by any theory of 
fraud. We did not say there was no fraud in it ; we 
did not affirm that it was not a trick ; but we said 
that we could not explain it. Although inclined to 
think slate-writing a trick, I deny the applicability 
to that case of any so-called exposures of which I 
have heard. It is said that the very psychic who per- 
formed this writing in my presence has been exposed 
by certain reporters in Chicago. If so, I rejoice. 
No man is likely to be more glad than I am to have 
such a trick thoroughly uncovered. I have heard 
that, on the platform of this very temple, a gentle- 
man who did not Wait afterward for advice, when 
he absconded with certain funds of the church over 
which he was settled, explained this writing. It may 
be he did ; but a gentleman who saw what I saw in 
the house of Mr. Epes Sargent was not satisfied that 
the case was parallel at all. He is a gentleman of 
high mental training, of the coolest judgment, and a 
most pronounced anti-spiritist. I will not name the 
gentleman this morning, although he is a friend of 
mine and my family physician; but he published 
over his own name a statement that the exposure on 
this platform was really no exposure at all of what 
we saw. He does not state that what we saw was 
not a trick ; but he asserts his belief that the trick 
has not yet been exposed. Let us expose fraud mer- 



168 OCCIDENT. 

cilessly ; but let us be perfectly fair. Let us see to 
it that we are not doubly swindled — - first by trick- 
sters among the spiritualists, and then by tricksters 
who expose the tricksters. I rejoice in the efforts of 
all honest exposers of spiritistic mediums. 

Let me be serious here, for I stand at the edge of 
a grave containing one who was dear to me as a 
brother. He was just entering upon what I hoped 
would be the most splendid part of his scientific 
career. It seems to me only yesterday that I saw 
him in vigorous health, full of intense anticipations 
concerning the progress of his own researches, and 
laying the widest plans for the future. Europe knew 
him. Some of his volumes had been translated into 
the German tongue. I suppose him to have been 
the most profound student of nervous diseases that 
the ranks of our younger medical men contained. 
He was a prolific author, and was rapidly transmuting 
the more hasty work of his early years into the solid 
work of his maturity. Seized by pneumonia, my 
classmate, my room-mate, my friend. Dr. George M. 
Beard, of New York city, has passed into the world 
into which all men haste. I have the most pathetic 
joy, in the midst of my tears, in repeating before 
this assembly his last words : " Let some one take 
up and carry on my investigations." 

Do not accuse me, in these circumstances, of wish- 
ing to repress efforts to expose all the sub tili ties of 
fraud in connection with spiritistic circles. There is 
no more glorious work into which spiritists them- 
selves can enter for the benefit of their own cause 
than to do this, and certainly they should be seconded 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNEH's VISWS. 169 

by the keenest wisdom of the medical profession. I 
would have America imitate Great Britain and or- 
ganize a dialectic society, like that of which Sir John 
Lubbock was chairman, and put into it some of the 
best men who can spare time to expose thoroughly 
spiritistic tricks and half-truths, for the purpose of 
putting an end to mischief of enormous proportions 
among those who belieye in the trustworthiness, as well 
as in the reality, of alleged spiritistic communications. 
I would have the work of my friend, in carrying on 
the study of trance and various diseases of the nerves, 
pushed forward until we have a science of the nerv- 
ous system. We do not possess it yet. It is time 
in our age of the world that the unexplored remain- 
ders of the human constitution should be illuminated, 
if possible, to the last fraction. It may be that we 
shall find in them nothing more than we now have, 
or even less ; but in Heaven's name let us explore 
the unknown in our own organisms. 

Ulrici, the foremost philosopher of Germany since 
the death of Lotze, assured me that neither Professor 
Christiani, nor Du Bois Reymond's secretary, nor any 
one else, to his knowledge, has ever explained Zoll- 
ner's alleged facts as to slate-writing. All Germany 
would ring with the explanation if any real one were 
given. He regards spiritualism, however, as only 
an "if" and a "perhaps," — a scientific question, 
indeed; but nothing more than a question. He be- 
lieves that it is 7iot well for students to spend their 
time on this matter, for they are likely to be misled. 
Only the acutest experts are safe when they enter 
on this path. He would dissuade average citizens 



170 OCCIDENT. 

of any country from attending seances. He would 
not cultivate spiritualistic knowledge as a popular 
matter ; but lie would have elaborate investigation 
concerning it made by men thoroughly equipped 
as experts. What good does he expect from even 
their investigation ? Precisely the benefit which has 
been prophesied often on this platform; first, the ex- 
posure of fraud, and, next, the discovery of any im- 
portant truths yet veiled from us in the unexplored 
remainders of the human constitution. He believes 
that we do not need any more evidence of immor- 
tality than we now have from the Scriptures and 
from reason. At least, they who are believers in the 
Scriptures and in the supernatural voices of con- 
science need no more evidence ; but materialists 
may need more. What Zollner called transcenden- 
tal physics, Ulrici thinks of great importance in the 
current conflict with materialistic, atheistic, and ag- 
nostic doubt. (See the " New Englander " for 1882, 
and January, 1883, for translations of Wundt's and 
Ulrici's articles on Spiritism.) 

To summarize, then, this whole discussion as to 
advanced thought in German philosophy : — 

1. Professor Zollner had and has vehement oppo- 
nents in the highest circles of learning in Germany ; 
nevertheless, his alleged facts have reached the ear 
of science in Europe. 

2. What is needed is a repetition of his experi- 
ments and thorough researches in the whole matter, 
in obedience to all the verifying laws of the scientific 
method. 

It was my fortune to assure Professor Zollner that 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNEP.'s VIEWS. 171 

Americans do not believe in the psychic he em- 
ployed ; that we regard him as a cheat ; that we nave 
proved him over and over to be in many things a 
fraud ; and that England came near putting him in 
jail for practising jugglery. " Very well," said Pro- 
fessor Zollner ; " here in Germany Mr. Slade always 
acted as a man of honor." I said : " The world does 
not believe in him. Your supreme duty to science is 
to repeat your experiments with some one who is not 
under suspicion, and in circumstances wholly above 
the charge of fraud." 

3. It has not yet been scientifically proved that the 
so-called slate-writing is not a trick, and the claim is 
frequently made in high quarters that it has been 
performed by methods of jugglery. 

4. Professor Zollner was not a believer in the 
trustworthiness, though he was in the reality of spir- 
itistic communications. 

5. He ought not to be called a spiritist, but rather 
a biblical demonologist. 

6. He believed that the Bible is the only safe 
guide as to our theories concerning spirits, good and 
bad. 

7. He was a thorough believer in the biblical doc- 
trine of the supernatural. He regarded the progress 
of psychical science as certain to confirm among men 
of science faith in the supernatural in its biblical 
sense. 

8. If it should ever he shown, as it has not been yet, 
that Zollner^ s alleged facts were real ones, the only 
scientific conclusions that can he deduced from them 
are those Christian ones which he drew from them. 



172 OCCIDENT. 

I part here from Germany with a full heart. The 
waterfalls, the forests, the roseate peaks, the stealthy 
glaciers of Switzerland are around us. As I look 
back from the summit of the St. Gothard Pass, let 
me lift up my hands in thankfulness to Almighty 
God for the freedom, the earnestness, and the breadth 
of research which characterize the best uniyersities 
of the Fatherland. Much skepticism, undoubtedly, 
has come out of Germany ; but the antidote to it has 
been provided in Germany also, by the most careful 
study. Here the mythical theory arose ; here it was 
wounded to the death. Here originated the haughty 
claim concerning myths and legends, that they are 
capable of explaining all that is called supernatural 
in the New Testament history ; here that theory has 
been cut o^ level with the ground from the very 
roots on which it stood expecting permanent life.. In 
this Germany there is a certain amount of obscure, 
mystical thinking; there are torpid churches enough; 
but the heart of the country, the heart of its learn- 
ing, is sound, because truly loyal both to clear ideas 
and to spiritual purposes. The blood of the Refor- 
mation is in Germany. The head of a Melancthon, 
the heart of a Luther — I believe these can be har- 
monized with the head of a Helmholtz, a Kant, or a 
Lotze. As I looked back from the Alps on Germany, 
seeking for some soul large enough to comprehend 
Luther and Melancthon, and Goethe and Helmholtz, 
whom could I take ? No one is large enough to 
comprehend all these souls ; but I left German soil 
carrying in my hands one of the works of Jean Paul 
Richter, largest soul of German literature, profoundly 



OPPONENTS OF ZOLLNER's VIEWS. 173 

Christian — not in all respects what I could wish in 
his convictions as to religious truths, but a spirit so 
large that a denial of immortality appeared to him 
to be philosophical lunacy. You put together Me- 
lancthon, Luther, Goethe in his ripest years, Richter, 
Kant, Lotze, and Helmholtz, and in these seven, as 
you look back from the Alps, you behold a German 
constellation fit to lead the ages. 



VI. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND 
GREECE. 

WITH A PRELUDE ON 

PROBATION AT DEATH. 

THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIXTH LECTURE IN THE 
BOSTON MONDAY LECTURESHIP, DELIVERED IN 
TREMONT TEMPLE, FEBRUARY 12, 1883. 



" Really, the right hand of God is everywhere. In this sense is the 
God-man — who is at the right hand of God — ubiquitous, that he 
may anywhere, at an}^ moment, reveal himself in his God-manhood to 
the willing soul. Such ubiquity, which may be called potential, best 
explains the vision of martyred Stephen, the vision of Paul near Da- 
mascus, and the beatific vision of the dying, so well accredited in in- 
stances without number." — Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock, 
Journal of Christian Philosophy, July, 1883, pp. 387, 388. 

" Christ is perfect God and perfect and glorified man ; as the for- 
mer He is present everywhere, as the latter He can be present any- 
where." — Bishop Ellicott. 



" The mountain ridges of the wall of the Colosseum stood high in 
the moonlight, with the deep gaps which had been hewn in them by 
the scythe of time. . . . The crater of the burnt out volcano once 
swallowed nine thousand beasts at once and quenched itself with hu- 
man blood. Here coiled the giant snake five times about Christianity 
— like a smile of scorn lies the moonlight upon the green arena where 
once stood the Colossus of the Sun-God. The Star of the North glim- 
mers low through the windows. The serpent and the bear crouch. 
What a world has gone by ! " — Richter, Titan. 

" Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
As the best gem upon her zone ; 
And Morning hastes to ope her lids 
To gaze upon the Pyramids." 

Emerson. 



PRELUDE VI. 
PROBATION AT DEATH. 

Immediate, total, and affectionate self-surrender 
of the soul to God is demanded of all responsible hu- 
man beings every instant by conscience, which is the 
voice of God. Postponement of obedience is disobe- 
dience. All delay of surrender to God is rebellion 
against God. The divine summons is incessant, and 
refusal to obey it is nothing less than incessant re- 
bellion. Choices are as multitudinous and as instan- 
taneous as thoughts; but the thoughts of a single 
day no man can number, and yet conscience judges 
every choice and all the secrets of the thoughts of 
the heart. A continuous evil predominant choice 
implies a continuous series of subsidiary evil choices ; 
and so the choices of an evil man succeed each other 
with the rapidity of thought. The divine voice with- 
in the soul constantly whispers " Thou oughtest," and 
the soul as constantly answers " I will not." It is 
the repetition of actions that makes them habitual. 
Repetition is the hammer which forges the chains 
of habit, and our own free choices wield the ham- 
mer. 

The supreme word of reason, therefore, speaking 
in the name of practical wisdom as to the duty of 
surrender to God, is Now. The supreme word of 

12 



178 OCCIDENT. 

conscience, speaking in the name of Eternal Right, 
is Now. The supreme word of the scientific scliool 
and of the Scriptural school in theology is To-day. 
The supreme word of the siren school and of every 
form of false liberalism is To-morrow^ a more con- 
venient season, or, possibly, the intermediate state. 
Incessant repetition of rebellious resolves, in defiance 
of incessant solicitations from the divine voice of 
conscience, must ultimately, under natural law, fix 
character in the sense of making its moral state per- 
manent. 

Hold unflinchingly to the first truths, the funda- 
mental, primary religious verities, that similarity of 
feeling with God is necessary to peace in his pres- 
ence, and that the longer we live in dissimilarity of 
feeling with Him the longer we are likely to do so. 
It is self-evident that we must love what God loves 
and hate what He hates, and that otherwise there is 
no possibility of peace for us in his presence. It is 
utterly indisputable, also, that the longer we live in 
the love of what He hates and in the hate of what 
He loves, the longer we are likely to do so. 

As the New England and all sound theology has 
taught for centuries, when the soul puts forth its first 
evil choice it takes sides against God. So far forth 
as depends on itself, it does in that single predomi- 
nant intention, in that initial moral resolve to rebel, 
put itself into its spiritual grave. Unless God ex- 
erts the special influences of the Holy Spirit upon 
such a soul, it will never rise out of its grave. The 
soul that decides once against God continues to be 
against God until it repents. It is the teaching of 



PROBATION AT DEATH. 179 

accredited theological science that we have no rea- 
son from Scripture to believe that a soul that has 
sinned even once against God will repent, unless God 
especially draw it, renew it, and lift it out of death 
by a spiritual resurrection. 

Endeavoring to show from mere reason that there 
is natural proof that death may end probation, I 
affirm that it is utterly futile for opponents of this 
position to say that it is a mere guess. If I do not 
know whether a fortress in which I am placed as 
commander is to be attacked to-night or to-morrow 
morning, it avails nothing for me to say : " I fancy 
that the attack may not be until to-morrow morn- 
ing." A surmise on that side of the case is worth- 
less. To lean on any guess of that kind would be in- 
sanity of the worst sort ; but a guess on the other 
side of the case, even if it is only a guess, will gov- 
ern my action. " I surmise," so the scout tells me, 
" that there may be an attack to-night ! " I will be 
ready, in any event. " What I say unto you I say 
unto all : Watch ! " So speak the Scriptures them- 
selves. 

Such being the stern facts which constitute the 
framework of my discussion, I now raise the central 
question : What constitutes probation by death seen 
at a distance, by death near at hand, and by death 
at its supreme moment ? 

1. Distant views of death have been disregarded, 
and their natural moral influence persistently re- 
sisted, by any one of advanced or middle age who 
approaches death unrepentant. 

2. Such persons as resist the natural moral in- 



180 OCCIDENT. 

fluences of death foreseen at a distance may very 
naturally resist its moral influences when it is close 
at hand. It is the general experience of the human 
race, and even of average populations in Christen- 
dom, that most men of middle or advanced life die 
as they have lived. They usually pass out of the 
world remaining, to outward appearance, in the gen- 
eral moral state in which they have drifted through 
life. 

3. In perhaps seven cases out of ten those who ap- 
pear to repent, in view of death supposed to be near 
at hand, show by their lives, when they are delivered 
from fear of death, that their repentance was not 
genuine. In proof of the truth of this assertion, I 
must appeal to the sacred experiences of the pastors 
around me, in their profound and close studies of hu- 
man character in its great moral crises. 

4. To the unrepentant soul, the discipline of death 
is one of fear chiefly. This, although the beginning 
of wisdom, is not the end of it. The moral motives, 
which include both the fear and the love of God, 
may be presented more powerfully to the soul in life 
than they well can be in death. 

5. There is probation by comparatively near views 
of the mountain-range of death and by the thought 
of what lies beyond it. 

6. There is probation in close approach to this 
range. 

7. There is probation in leaving the plain and as- 
cending the slope of the range. 

8. There is probation in leaving behind, once for 
all, the affairs of the world and the temptations of 
the flesh. 



I 



PEOBATION AT DEATH. 181 

9. There is probation in ascending liigli enongli on 
the mountain-range of death to have wide outlooks, 
in the breadth and elevation and seriousness of which 
the whole aspect of life is changed. 

I figure to myself our passage through life to 
death as like the crossing of the tropical portion of 
our continent from Atlantic to Pacific, with the An- 
des in view at a distance. Occasionally, as Words- 
worth tells us, we hear far inland the roar of the 
ocean on the East of life. It is long before childhood 
ceases to have intimations of immortality. Many a 
time, on the height of our best experiences in youth, 
we have wide outlooks, backward as well as forward. 
For one, I think those elevated experiences which 
come to comparatively uncorrupted young souls are 
full of really divine voices and actually supernatural 
touches of the Holy Spirit. These influences may 
bring the soul into a natural religiousness, which is 
not Christianity, indeed, and not sufficient to save 
the soul ; but is a general preparation for the re- 
ception of the regenerating truths of our holy faith. 
I believe, in short, with one of the great fathers of 
the Church, that the soul is naturally Christian. It 
usually appears such in the high moments of early 
life when youth is pure. It is in man, as man, to 
remember whence he came. It is in man, as man, 
to find on the summit of his nature the place for an 
altar to Almighty God. Richter says that on every 
hill-top, in the summits of the loftiest natures of 
every nation, wiU be found an altar to the unseen, 
personal God. 

As we go on in life, and look across the Brazilian 



182 OCCIDENT. 

plain towards the sunset, we behold from afar the 
Andes, the termmal experiences of death. We do 
not always see them while we are in the dust of the 
wayside. We are oblivious both of what is behind 
us and of what is before us when we are among 
the wild beasts of the forests. We lie down many 
nights, it may be, under the roaring tempests and 
the creaking boughs, under terrible tropical rains 
and lightnings, and listen to the thunders of the 
passing storm, and forget the rolling of the ocean on 
the East, and do not even ask whether there is an 
ocean rolling beyond the Andes at the West. But 
great moments come again. We ascend the hill-tops. 
We have far, clear views of the terminal range. And 
then, sooner or later, we do come to the edge of that 
range. We perceive vividly that we are leaving the 
level plain of middle life. We ascend to the begin- 
nings of old age, and the outlook broadens. Some- 
times sudden death gives us instantly an elevation 
to the height of this range, and the quick transition 
from a low plane of experience to an elevated one 
brings what seems to be almost a supernatural move- 
ment of the soul. The elevated thought and feeling 
natural to a near approach to death constitute usu- 
ally a great spiritual experience, and the soul must 
decide for or against any light that comes to it in 
this loftier view. 

10. Most commonly the summits of the mountains 
of death are veiled in mists. There are compara- 
tively few deaths in which the faculties of the soul 
retain their balance and have clear vision to the very 
summit of transition from time to eternity. 



PEOBATION AT DEATH. 183 

11. Nevertheless, there is in many average cases, 
before consciousness is lost, a marvelous quickening 
of conscience and memory when death is expected 
instantly and by unimpaired faculties. 

Physiologists themselves say that in death, after 
the power of speech, and even of motion, is lost, 
there may be a quickening of memory bringing the 
whole life before conscience, because attention is 
taken off the external world. Draper says ("Hu- 
man Physiology," p. 662), very suggestively : 
" Doubtless the mind in the solemn moment of death 
is sometimes occupied with an instantaneous review 
of impressions long before made upon the brain, and 
which offer themselves with clearness and energy, 
now that present circumstances are failing to excite 
its attention through loss of sensorial power of the 
peripheral organs, this state of things having also 
been testified to by those who have been recovered 
from drowning." This marvelous awakening of 
m.emory may occur even when all the external senses 
are active. When once, in expectation of instant 
death, my whole life was thrown before me vividly, 
as if in panoramic vision, I was exceedingly atten- 
tive to what was going on outside of me. When 
I felt a torch lighted inside my brain, my attention 
was not taken off external things. I was very anx- 
ious to know whether the railway coach, in which 
I was being thro^vn down a rocky bank, was to be 
instantly dashed to pieces, whether it was to take 
fire, whether my death was to be by a swift concus- 
sion with the rocks, or whether I was to be burned 
alive. The first thing said after the coach struck 



184 OCCIDENT. 

and everything inside of it fell into a cliaos of wreck, 
was : " Are there any lights burning ? Put them 
out ! " Every passenger had his mind on that 
thought, the possibility of horrible death by burning. 
But, although my mind was thus intensely occupied 
by what was outside of me, the whole of my life, in 
its moral relations, from earliest youth to the latest 
hour, flashed before me instantaneously, but vividly. 

12. When the faculties of the soul remain unim- 
paired, there is probation in arrival at the summit of 
the mountain-range of death and in the outlook be- 
yond. 

In life, as in the sky, there are few perfectly clear 
sunsets. Sometimes, however, the sky is unclouded 
until the very last, and we may observe the whole 
outward appearance of the setting orb until it disap- 
pears. Such cases, in which the mental and moral 
faculties seem to be unimpaired to the very end, are 
exceedingly instructive and deserve the most careful 
inductive study. 

13. What are the experiences of the soul in the 
supreme moment of death, when an outlook beyond 
its summit appears to be vouchsafed to some ? 

In the most remarkable exceptional cases there 
have been observed in the dying : (1) a starting up 
of the body, but in a manner different from auto- 
matic action ; (2) a pointing with the hand, but with 
a definiteness and steadiness not explicable by au- 
tomatism ; (3) a look as if at the appearance of a 
sudden vision and most appreciably different from 
the merely automatic stare ; (4) a steady, intense, 
intelligent gaze ; (5) frequent mysterious brighten- 



PEOBATION AT DEATH. 185 

ing of the eyes ; (6) a strange luminoiisness of face ; 
(7) sometimes the hearing of strange voices ; (8) 
sometimes emphatic words. It is a fact of science 
that in the dying the eyes often mysteriously brighten 
just before they glaze. 

14. It is possible that the peculiar experiences 
here described may all be susceptible of a scientific, 
physiological, or psychological explanation as wholly 
subjective in origin. 

15. It is perhaps certain that they are thus expli- 
cable in many cases. 

16. It is improbable, however, that they are thus 
explicable in all cases. This improbability rests on — 

(1.) The earnestness, reality, and unexpectedness 
of the emotions displayed by the dying in these high- 
est experiences. 

(2.) The sameness of the experiences in persons 
of different temperaments, education, and beliefs. 

(3.) The great number of those who have exhib- 
ited these signs. 

(4.) The differences in minute detail between 
what occurs in mere trance and hallucination and 
automatic action of the brain, on the one hand, and 
what is observed in some of these experiences, on 
the otber. 

There are lying here at my side the authentic rec- 
ords of twenty cases illustrating the experiences of 
the dying in what appears to be an outlook from the 
summit of death upon a world beyond it. 

Here is a famous essay by Frances Power Cobbe 
entitled " The Peak in Darien ; or. The Kiddle of 
Death.." She is no partisan on the side of evangel- 



186 OCCIDENT. 

ical theology, but she summarizes in this article a long 
list of experiences in which just such visions beyond 
the peak of death appear to have been had by the 
coolest, most unimpassioned persons in their dying 
moments. The late Dr. Clarke, a physician of great 
eminence in this city, published a thoroughly scien- 
tific work on "Visions," and its introduction was 
written by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. In that 
volume, which is sufiiciently skeptical as to the objec- 
tive reality of anything seen in vision by the dying 
(see pp. 258-272), an admission is made (p. 274) 
which cannot very easily be set down as mere hallu- 
cination. " Probably all such visions as these," says 
Dr. Clarke, " are automatic. But yet, who, believing 
in God and personal immortality, as the writer re- 
joices in doing, will dare to say absolutely all? will 
dare to assert there is no possible exception ? If life 
is continuous, heaven beyond and death the portal, is 
it philosophical to affirm that no one entering that 
portal has ever caught a glimpse or can ever catch a 
glimpse, before he is utterly freed from the flesh, of 
the glory beyond? The pure materialist, sad disci- 
ple of Nihilism, may dispute this ; but no Theist or 
Christian will be bold enough to deny it" (p. 272). 
" There would be no revival of brain-cells, stamped 
with earthly memories and scenes, but something 
seen of which the brain had received no antecedent 
impression and of which the Ego had formed no con- 
ception. Entranced by a glimpse of what eye hath 
not seen nor ear heard and of which man has formed 
no conception, the gaze of the departing spirit would 
be riveted upon a glory invisible to his earthly com- 



PKOBATION AT DEATH. 187 

panions. His features would be transfigured, and 
those around liim would be amazed, perhaps appalled, 
at the sight, as some fishermen were, two thousand 
years ago, upon a mountain in Galilee, by the tran- 
scendent glory of a familiar face." ('' Visions : A 
Study of False Sight," by Dr. E. H. Clarke. Boston, 
1878, p. 278.) 

You dare not look at the holiest facts of death ? 
You dare not avert your eyes from them ! These are 
verities that hush the house, because they are verities 
into which we are all drifting. Death is so great a 
fact that it is the only circumstance we are permitted 
to see with certainty in our futures. Nothing else is 
certain ; but it is certain that every eye here will 
glaze, every breath, every pulse, pause, every form 
grow cold and turn to dust. Nothing m all our fu- 
ture is really certain but our exit. There is nothing 
so high in life as the opportunity it gives of going up 
higher ; there is nothmg so much worth living for in 
life as death. He is a fool who has not looked through 
life and obtained such a vision of eternity as to con- 
stitute an inspiration. He is a weakling in life who 
has not leaned forward far enough to obtain an inha- 
lation from the other world for use in this. Thomas 
Carlyle was always citing Goethe's Mason's Song : — 

" Silent before us, 
Veiled the dark portal, 
Goal of all mortal. 
Stars over us silent, 
Graves under us silent. 
Choose well, your choice 
Brief is but endless. 



188 OCCIDENT. 

Here in eternity 
Eyes to regard you, 
Here is all fulness, 
Ye brave, to reward you. 
Work and despair not." 

17. There may be cases when in death, at the su- 
preme moment, the good may see those who have 
gone before them, and; perhaps, first of all, those 
nearest and dearest among those that have been taken 
from them. It is said of the martyr Stephen that he 
saw heaven opened and Jesus standing at the right 
hand of God. 

18. There may be cases in which the evil may see 
in death those whom they have injured : a Nero those 
he has slain ; a Charles IX. those he has massacred ; 
and the murderer or adulterer may meet his victims. 

19. After this mysterious experience of a supreme 
outlook beyond death, the soul sometimes retains 
power enough over the body to speak ; and, of course, 
its probation is not over in such cases. 

20. In these cases, therefore, there must be proba- 
tion by any light which comes to the evil soul or to 
the good in the supreme moment, for this light must 
be accepted or rejected. 

Allow me to ask you to notice that I make nothing 
whatever in this argument depend upon the determi- 
nation of the precise moment or manner of death 
considered as a physical change, but everything upon 
its character considered as a spiritual experience. 
Nor do I insist at all upon those exceptional types 
of experience which must, indeed, not be overlooked, 
but are not essential to my chief purpose. 



PROBATION AT DEATH. 189 

21. A distinction must be made between real and 
apparent death. 

It is true, to be sure, that it is not agreed among 
men of science precisely when the separation of the 
soul from the body occurs ; but such separation is 
the ordinary definition of death. This definition is 
all the better for being trite. It is the accepted defi- 
nition. There has been a prize offered in France for 
many years for an unmistakable sign of death. Ces- 
sation of the breath is not always that sign, cessation 
of the pulse is not, for both breath and pulse cease in 
cases of suspended animation. In saying that the 
light of eternity sometimes dawns on the soul before 
the eyes are closed to this world, I assert what to all 
appearance is scientifically demonstrable ; but I, of 
course, do not mean the full light of eternity. 

The physiological truth is that breathing does not 
cease, usually, until after the eyes glaze, and the 
eyes brighten before they glaze in many cases, when 
the faculties are unobscured at the last moment of 
life. The development of the heat of the body and 
several other organic functions continue for a time 
after breath and pulse cease. (See Draper's " Phys- 
iology," p. 562.) According to some definitions of 
death, it does not close until the natural heat of the 
body passes away. 

22. Whether rapid or otherwise, death is the sep- 
aration of the soul from the body, and probation is 
not over until death ends. 

23. Probation in deaths however rapid, includes 
time for decision for or against all the light it brings, 

24. It is rational to believe that he who passes 



190 OCCIDENT. 

through probation hy death seen at a distance^ and hy 
death near at hand, and hy death at its supreme mo- 
ment, unrepentant, will be so hardened and blinded 
by resisting all the light of these mighty spiritual ex- 
periences that he will never repent. 

This position is reinforced by the three great facts 
already noticed in another connection : (1) that he 
who comes to death unrepentant must have resisted 
its natural moral influences, as it is seen from a dis- 
tance, and so have hardened and blhided his soul by 
sin against light ; (2) that most men of middle or 
advanced life die as they have lived ; and (3) that 
probably seven cases out of ten of ajDparent repent- 
ance in presence of death turn out not to be genuine 
if life is spared. 

25. Mere reason, therefore, makes it highly prob- 
able that death ends probation. Under natural law 
and the continuous repetitions of moral choices by 
the soul, probation before death appears to be enough, 
and probation at death more than enough, to fix 
character, at least in germ. 

26. It has been shown that what reason makes 
probable on this point the Scriptures make certain. 

27. The supreme dictate of practical wisdom coin- 
cides demonstrably, therefore, with the imperative and 
incessant mandate of conscience, with all the unspeak- 
able promptings of the Divine love and mercy, as 
seen in both Nature and revelation, and with the con- 
stantly reiterated command of the Scriptures, and 
makes total, affectionate, irreversible self-surrender of 
the soul to God its duty this instant. 

Inventing no new theory of probation, I have sim- 



PEOBATTON AT DEATH. 191 

ply analyzed notorious facts and found behind them 
enouo-h to fill our faces with the whiteness of awe in 
the presence of the natural laws which govern char- 
acter. My chief propositions are that the light which 
death brings is not likely to save the soul, but that 
resistance to this light may ruin the soul. It is not 
likely to save, for he who has resisted all light up to 
death is almost certain to resist light in death. It 
may ruin, for he who resists all light up to death and 
in death, probably commits unpardonable sin, and 
fixes the permanent bent of his character. Sinning 
against the light blinds us to the light, and he who, 
under the constant summons of God in conscience 
to repent, constantly replies in the negative, and 
does so on the approach of death, and in death, and, 
when the light which the last moment emphasizes 
or reveals, breaks upon him, may be expected, under 
natural law, never to repent. " Now is the accepted 
time; now is the day of salvation." This is the 
voice of all the constellations in the merely natural 
sky of reason. It is the voice of all the constella- 
tions in the sky of revelation. May God give us 
wisdom to obey these voices instantly ! [Many 
voices : " Amen I " " Amen ! "] 



LECTURE VI. 

ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 

C^SAe's work is nine tenths undone ; tliat of 
Peter and Paul remains. Rome is more theirs than 
his. Let us not underrate what ancient Rome has 
done for jurisprudence, literature, and art ; but the 
relations of Rome, ancient and modern, to Christian- 
ity are a yet more important theme. 

What is to be said of advanced thought in Italy ? 
Chiefly that it is undermining the Papacy, upsetting 
Romanism, putting an end to Vaticanism, but not 
that it is annihilating Catholicism. Separate for me 
the pure portions of the Catholic faith from the ac- 
cretions of Vaticanism, Romanism, and the Papacy, 
and, although I may retain the liberty, even after 
such sifting, to make many criticisms of the resid- 
uum, I should, nevertheless, be obliged to say God- 
speed to the central parts of the Reformed Catholic 
faith. Dean Stanley was not without hope that the 
English Church, tlie Greek Church, and a Reformed 
Catholic Church might establish a loose union. If 
this is a wild expectation, there is, nevertheless, 
much reason to believe that Catholicism will be 
slowly purified as the intelligence of the masses of 
Catholic populations increases. One of Luther's 
benedictions to Melancthon was : " May God fill your 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 193 

heart with hatred of the papacy." Melancthon him- 
self did not care to see a reformed Catholicism, even 
if it had some central ecclesiastical power at Rome, 
disappear. I do wish to see Romanism, in the sense 
of Vaticanism, vanish as vapor before the sun, and 
pass completely out of sight or ken of the human 
race. I abhor Vaticanism, and Romanism, if by 
Romanism you mean Vaticanism ; but Catholicism, 
under which term I would summarize the pure parts 
of the Romish faith, I believe has a long life yet 
before it in a reformed shape in the Latin world. 

What are the prospects of reformed Romanism, as 
you look on it from the City of the Seven Hills ? 

In 1191 Celestine III. made the Emperor Henry 

VI. kneel down before him, and then kicked his 
crown off his head, in order to show the Pope's pre- 
rogative of making and unmaking kings. Gregory 

VII. obliged Henry IV., Emperor of Germany, to 
stand three days in the depth of winter, barefooted, 
at the gate of the Castle of Canossa, to implore his 
pardon. What has happened since those days? Bis- 
marck tells the German Parliament that neither he 
nor his nation expects to go to Canossa. Fifteen 
thousand dollars from poor shop-girls in Great Brit- 
ain were only a few years ago presented to the Pope 
by Lady Herbert, of England, and he seems to have 
needed the gift. The states of the Church, after 
a thousand years of dark preeminence, have dis- 
appeared from the map of Italy. The unofficial 
secretaries of legation, kept at the Papal Court by 
several nations, have been withdrawn. The legation 
from England, in 1874, ceased to have any official 

13 



194 OCCIDEKT. 

home at the Vatican, and even France is now in- 
clined not to send any representative to the Court 
of St. Peter. The fact cannot be concealed even 
from- Romanists, that the temporal power of the Pa- 
pacy has passed away in our time. The alphabet- 
ical guide to the Protestant churches in Italy says 
there are 138 organized Protestant churches, besides 
assemblies where service is conducted in English, 
French, and German. There are among the Wal- 
denses 15,000 communicants, and from 8,000 to 
10,000 more in the Italian Protestant churches. 

At the time of the Armada — that is, in 1588 — 
Spain alone had forty-three millions of people. Eng- 
land, Wales, and Scotland numbered only about four 
millions, or fewer than London itself contains to- 
day. Now, Spain has only sixteen millions, while 
Great Britain has thirty-six, with colonial subjects 
swelling the number to more than three hundred 
millions. The wealth of Great Britain has increased 
a hundred-fold, while Spain has become impover- 
ished. In France there are more than half a mill- 
ion Protestants, with a thousand Protestant pastors, 
more than 1,200 Protestant schools, and thirty Pro- 
testant religious journals. In Switzerland Roman- 
ism had once all, and now has only two-fifths of 
the population. In Bavaria the Protestants number 
nearly a third of the population. In Belgium alone 
does Romanism show vigor. 

It has been my fortune to recite these facts in a 
public lecture almost under the shadow of the Vati- 
can, and I am speaking at this moment from notes 
used in Rome. In 1851 the Roman Catholics were 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 195 

25 per cent, of the whole population of England and 
Wales and Ireland ; in 1871, or twenty years later, 
they were only 19 per cent. Nevertheless, the Pope 
has recently referred to England as a field of victory 
for Romanism. The last edition of the "Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica " says that Catholics in England and 
Wales, according to the census of 1877, were barely 
one million. Eoman Catholic churches and chapels 
increased in England, Scotland, and Wales from 647, 
in 1850, to 1,543, in 1880 ; but Protestant churches 
have increased more, relatively, and there is now a 
less percentage of Romanists in the British popula- 
tion than at the beginning of the century. Roman 
Catholicism has not been progressive in England for 
a quarter of a century. Until within about fifty 
years all South America was Roman Catholic ; but 
now some twenty Protestant missionary societies are 
at work there. Mexico once had the richest Roman 
Catholic establishment in the world ; but Protestant- 
ism is making great inroads upon its chief cities. In 
1800 the Roman Catholics were 0.02 of the whole 
population of the United States, now they are 12.68. 
The Evangelical population of the United States in 
1800 was 24 per cent, of the whole population ; now 
it is estimated at 70 per cent. In 1800 there was in 
the United States one Evangelical Protestant com- 
municant for every fifteen of the population ; now 
there is one in five. 

What of Count Campello ? It was my fortune to 
meet him in Rome, and to study his career care- 
fully through his own eyes, as well as those of both 
his friends and opponents. He is one of the signs 



196 OCCIDENT. 

of the times as to the probable future of Romanism 
in Italy ; a devout, brave, and able man ; a scholar, 
who drifted out of Romanism because he could not 
drift out of honesty. He has endeavored, but with 
little success, thus far, to establish a journal of his 
own, in which he does not advocate all our various 
jarring sects of Protestantism. He is very careful 
not to bring forward fifty-five religions in the place 
of one. But he stands upon the general princijDles 
of Protestantism, and advocates such a religion as 
will at once reach the heart of the people of Italy 
and not offend the powers of the state. Pie is not 
cringing in his attitude before the civil authorities, 
neither does he take the position of a craven syco- 
phant before popular ignorance. He attacks Vati- 
canism boldly, he opposes infidelity vigorously; in 
short, he is doing admirable Protestant work in the 
pulpit and on the platform and in the press. The day 
is coming when he, and men with purposes like his, 
are likely to have many followers on the Seven Hills. 
You stand in Rome and look abroad over the do- 
minions of the Pope in the world, and can hardly 
fail to be made cheerful by many a prospect of re- 
form ; not near at hand, perhaps, but inevitable at 
last. The temporal power of the Pope has been 
taken from him, once for all. Say what you please 
about the possibility of its being finally brought 
back, it appears to me that the hour has sounded 
when all serious Romanists themselves should give 
up this hope. Transfer the seat of the Papacy from 
Europe to this country, if you please. I should re- 
joice in such transferral ; because, once out of Rome, 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 197 

the Papacy will not be itself. A certain historic and 
ecclesiastical glamoiu: will be rubbed off it the mo- 
ment jou put it into another country. Bring it to 
New York, and you will be bringing a gaudy butter- 
fly into the frosts of the latest Autumn. We are 
very rude toward gilded things in this country. We 
have many kinds of sense ; but very little historic 
sense or ecclesiastical sense. The Pope in New York 
would most assuredly be a humming-bird in March. 
What am I to say of Protestantism at large in 
Italy ? What are the present duties of Protestant- 
ism on the Seven Hills of Rome ? What measures 
for the advance of Protestantism m Italy ought to 
be supported by Protestants elsewhere ? Among 
particular measures for the advance of Protestantism 
in Italy these are very specially important at the 
present time : — 

1. Support of the new Italian national system of 
education — especially of the institutions equivalent 
to our common schools and high schools. 

2. Churches of aggressive piety. 

3. Lectureships in Protestant apologetics. 

4. Scientific theological training of preachers. 

5. Evangelical services. 

6. All methods for the religious culture of the 
young. 

7. Temporary financial assistance to converts in 
need of employment after ceasing to be Roman- 
ists. 

8. Purity of life in the Evangelical ministry. 

9. Unity among Evangelical sects. 

10. Exposure of the errors of the Papacy, as illus- 



198 OCCIDENT. 

trated in the history of indulgences, inquisitions, 
Mariolatry, monasteries, the denial of the Bible to 
the people, the political pretensions of the hierarchy, 
and its opposition to the education of the people. 

Many a cab-driver in Paris was once a priest. It 
is very difficult to obtain in Paris reputable employ- 
ment at the present hour for a priest who has aban- 
doned Romanism. It is almost impossible to do this 
in the Sacred City of the Tiber. I found Protestant 
ministers and missionaries substantially unanimous, 
although not quite so, in the opinion that financial 
assistance should be given to such converts ; not per- 
manently, but from time to time, according to the 
wisdom of those who study the circumstances in de- 
tail in each case. It is really a question of starva- 
tion that faces many a man who leaves Romanism in 
Italy. Many a poor priest will not be received as a 
teacher, or employed in any position of high trust, if 
it is known that he has become a reprobate to Ro- 
manism. Perhaps very little ought to be said upon 
this point, after all. Nevertheless, so does Rome 
differ from London, so does Paris differ from Boston, 
that temporary assistance of this sort sometimes 
makes the difference between courage and a craven 
attitude in one who leaves Romanism. Unless a 
man can obtain his living, it is hard to induce him 
to be thoroughly aggressive in his opposition to the 
faith he abandons in Italy. In twenty-five years no 
aid of the kind here suggested will be needed. 

What is Italy to the world ? you ask. What is 
she to-day to the Romish world ? Queen of Romish 
nations, head of all great Romish forces on this 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 199 

planet. Conquer Italy for Protestantism and ad- 
vanced civilization ; conquer that land of beauty and 
of song ; conquer that population of devout religious 
instincts and of marvellous artistic perceptions ; con- 
quer that proud people of ancient blood, not yet for- 
getful of its lineage, and you conquer Romanism 
throughout the planet. 

What was Italy to the world? The most ad- 
vanced thought of Italy must be learned from the 
clustered constellations of culture in the deep sky of 
her classical ages. The azure canopy in which Hor- 
ace and Virgil, Cicero and Csesar blaze as fixed stars 
is yet spread over all educated nations. Among the 
ruins of the Forum and the Palatine Hill, and along 
the Appian Way and in the Colosseum and the Cata- 
combs, the air is full of ghosts, with whom you 
converse of what was and is and is to be. " Torn 
asunder," says Richter, " are the gigantic spokes of 
the wheel which once the very stream of the ages 
drove." Their pathetic fragments are more glorious 
than all that has taken their place. 

No marbles in Italy are more worthy of study 
than the portrait busts from the classical ages. Un- 
til the faces of the emperors and philosophers and 
orators and poets have not only given up their secrets 
as pieces of physiognomy, but have been set in their 
proper relations to history and biography, so that a 
restoration of the spiritual atmospheres of ancient 
Rome becomes possible to the student of her ruins, 
it can hardly be said that he has appreciated the 
opportunities of a visitor at the Capitoline Museum 
and the Vatican. A general remark on the ancient 



200 OCCIDEKT. 

portrait busts is, that the heads and faces are 
stronger than those of the present Italian public 
men, though in general more nearly of the same 
types of form than one would suppose by studying 
idealized modern illustrations of the Roman counte- 
nances in the Augustan age. Often weak, some- 
times exceedingly cruel, very frequently coarse and 
oleaginous in fibre, the classical faces are yet less 
melted and inwardly effeminate than the average 
types of the Italy of the present day. In general, 
large remnants of health of soul and of vigor of 
constitution remain in the earlier line of emperors. 
These founders of imperial power have a more force- 
ful quantity and quality of being than can be attrib- 
uted to the average of the later line. 

Curiously one notices, among the antique busts 
of the Capitoline Museum, in Julius Coesar^ dignity, 
magnanimity, and force ; the strong cheek - bones, 
forehead, nose, and chin ; the hollow cheeks ; the two 
horizontal and two vertical wrinkles in the high and 
deep but not pugnaciously thick forehead : in Au- 
gustus^ imperiousness and intensity, but a certain 
lack of strength in the lower face as compared with 
Julius Csesar ; the pronouncedly knit brows, the 
cold, imperious lips : in Caligula^ a lawless will, a 
cruel arrogance, a whimsical, general disposition, a 
weak lower face ; the mouth, eyes, and brows those 
of a person of inferior ability, accustomed to un- 
limited power : in Claudius^ weakness of character, 
considerable force of intellect, the absence of pre- 
dominant, cruel dispositions ; the rather thin and 
flabby lower face, as of a man whom women might 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 201 

rule : in Messalina, treachery, sensuality, and daring ; 
the repulsively sensual thickening of the lower face, 
in spite of the general symmetry of the features and 
the fineness of fibre : in Agrippina, ability, perfidy, 
ambition, with a capacity for cruelty in the service 
of these predominant traits, and for sensuality which 
would know no check except from selfishness; the 
forehead, cheek-bones, and chin strong for a woman's 
face, and yet the whole countenance quite symmetri- 
cal and perhaps in youth outwardly, though never 
inwardly, beautiful : in JVero, at eighteen or twenty 
years of age, brutal coarseness, perfidy, and the puffy 
cheeks of physical indulgence ; in Nero, later in his 
life, the withered lower face contrasting strangely 
with the dewlap in the chin and the thick neck ; 
then the wrinkled forehead, the scornful and lawless 
lips, and yet the fibre of the man's brain and face 
not so bad as the form of both : in Poppea Sahina^ 
outward beauty, sensuality, and ambition : in Titus., 
to pass by the coarse and cruel face of Vespasian, a 
certain elevation and worthiness both of mind and 
character, triumphing over some tendency to sen- 
suality, but having very little natural cruelty to 
contend with: in Trajan, a look of justice and pen- 
etration, not met with since Csesar's face ; an om- 
nipresent careworn expression, as if derived from 
honorable fulfilment of the duties of ruling; the 
length of the head from the ear to the space between 
the brows ; the strong cheek and chin ; the chief 
fault, the flatness of the upper brain at its front : in 
Hadrian, a very complete equipment of all the fac- 
ulties, yet a certain tendency to secretly cherished 



202 OCCIDENT. 

sensualities and cruelties, and a lack of elevation, 
except of the kind which arises from good taste : in 
Marcus Aurelius, as a youth, the best nature among 
the emperors, generosity, ingenuousness, and eleva- 
tion of soul ; the symmetrical, open and sweet, but 
not soft face ; its extreme contrast with Caracalla, or 
Nero, or Faustina, whose repulsively thickened, sen- 
sual cheeks, neck, and chin are next to it ; in Marcus 
Aurelius, as a man, the same traits matured, with a 
careworn look and a little more suspicion, but with 
no treachery or sensuality mingled with them. 

In the Hall of the Philosophers, a thousand 
thoughts fill the soul as one notices in Socrates the 
colossal forehead and satyr-like nose ; the powerful, 
shrewd, and wholly honest eyes, contrasted with the 
democratic carelessness of the beard and strong 
lower face ; a gigantic nature, symmetrical in every 
part, except an ugliest possible pug-nose, — uglier, yet 
in the bust at Villa Albani where the power of the 
forehead is not quite as great as here : in Demosthenes, 
the six wrinkles in the brows ; the whole face and 
head exceedingly like that of the Vatican statue, 
but possibly expressing even greater intensity and 
concentration of intellect and will, and breathing in- 
genuousness everywhere through the terrible mental 
and moral penetration : in ^schines, comparative in- 
dolence, a capacity for dishonesty, and yet much sym- 
metry and force of brain; the unmistakable proofs 
that he was neither as earnest, nor as honest, nor as 
intense, nor as penetrating as Demosthenes, and yet 
that his intellectual ability was very considerably 
noteworthy: in Euripides, a Shakespearian height 



ADVANCED THO EIGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 203 

of the coronal region of tlie brain, and an equally 
Shakespearian fulness and symmetry of the whole 
forehead. The Homers here, although undoubtedly 
not portraits, are interesting as creations of ancient 
art, for the faces resemble each other closely and 
have wonderful power and sensitiveness. In two of 
the busts, the height of the coronal region, especially 
of that above the ears, is so great as to look almost 
unnatural. Homer's head has three stories, and in 
one bust a dome above the third story. The delicate 
lines about the admirably formed brows and eyes 
betray an almost insane sensitiveness. This lofty, 
fine, elastic brain would be both telescopic and mi- 
croscopic; it is hardly too much to say that it is 
worthy to be Homer's. Extreme fulness of natural 
equipment, conjoined with considerable tendency to 
severity, appears in Scipio Africanus. The bust 
called by the critics Aristotle unites masculine and 
feminine traits most wonderfully ; the dim, cheek- 
bones jaws, brows, and nose are of staunch make, 
but the lips taken alone might be those of a sen- 
sitive woman. The great eye orbits, the vivacious 
expression, the slight elevation of the chin and open- 
ing of the lips make the general impression the ob- 
server receives from this bust more vivid than that 
from any other in the room, excepting Homer's. 

Doubtless the Demosthenes of the Vatican is a 
portrait, not only of the countenance of the greatest 
orator of the world, but of his whole form and most 
characteristic action in speaking. It is at least safe 
to say that this is the confirmed opinion of sculptors 
who know how accurately ancient art, in its por- 



204 OCCIDENT. 

trait statues, reproduced tlie whole man. The figure 
speaks incisively to the conscience. The face is pre- 
cisely that which the orations of Demosthenes lead 
the student of them to expect. It is a concentration 
of earnestness, honesty, elevation of soul, force of 
will, and terribly penetrating, practical judgment. 
The great earnestness of the countenance strikes one 
from all points ; but perhaps best from a viev/ 
slightly on the right of the front, where the sharp 
lines of thought and will and conscientiousness show 
themselves at every angle of forehead, eyebrows, 
cheeks, and lips. Not a suspicion of disingenuous- 
ness, or of the capacity for it, is in the face. This 
is its greatest power. Demosthenes, as represented 
by the Vatican statue, is not only transcendently 
able, earnest, and honest, but he is also unconscious 
that he is either. He gives to the observer the 
irresistible impression that in no possible circum- 
stances would the judgment or the conscience of the 
orator be found asleep or at fault. He is genuine, 
and terribly determined that his hearers shall be. 
The face cannot be intelligently contemplated with- 
out an emotion of trust, giving the auditor a sense 
of relief and a readiness for submission, not to De- 
mosthenes, for he does not assert himself at all, but 
to the truth, which he not only possesses, but by 
which he is plainly possessed. It is remarkable that 
the original position of the hands should have been 
a most quiescent one ; although even when folded, 
as they were, they must have been nervously alive, 
as are every thread and fibre of the form and face. 
If the countenance of Demosthenes had earnest- 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GREECE. 205 

ness like a thunderbolt when his hands were folded, 
what may it not have had in his more animated ges- 
ture ? The fulness and the reserve of power are both 
expressed in the posture the sculptor has chosen; 
and doubtless both were as often expressed together 
by his physical action as they are by the rhetor- 
ical structure of his speeches. This physical frame is 
as closely knit as the Philippics. The attitude and 
atmosphere are as thoroughly genuine at all points 
as those of the Oration on the Crown. The texture 
of this high, intense, stern, penetrating, supremely 
earnest and practical soul is precisely the same with 
the texture of that argument and appeal. It is 
worth noticing that the head is high and admirably 
symmetrical ; the forehead full at the top and up- 
per angles, as well as along the intense brows ; the 
breadth of it not inferior, and yet not as remark- 
able as its height and its depth backward toward 
the ears. The lower forehead is very strong and of 
the type supposed to indicate practical good judg- 
ment ; the nose of the best form ; the cheeks ner- 
vous and slightly thinned by thought. The mouth, 
as far as the upper and shortly cut lower beard allows 
it to be seen, is severe and yet flexible and finely 
cut. There are two wrinkles crossing the forehead 
horizontally. Many busts of Demosthenes repre- 
sent the forehead with vertical furrows. The eyes 
are deeply set, very serious, firm, and intense, but 
not large. Seen from a three quarters view, there 
are in the head admirable height and symmetry, 
and in the face the most noble earnestness, force, and 
incisiveness. The dress is not as simple as it ap- 



206 OCCIDENT. 

pears at first sight. Tlie toga, the only garment 
visible, has two small tassels at the tips of its cape, 
and the sandals are fastened with ties elaborately 
curved over the bridge of the foot. The right 
shoulder, and nearly the whole of the left, and quite 
the whole of the right arm, are bare. The toga 
falls to the region of the ankles. The form has, of 
course, no superfluous weight. The temperament is 
intensely nervous ; but the contour of shoulders and 
muscles is gracefully masculine. The neck is neither 
large nor small, but its length corresponds well with 
the height of the head and of the whole statu^re. 
^schines should be set in contrast with the Vatican 
Demosthenes. The rival orator, according to his 
marble portraits, had a large and symmetrical head, 
but lacked vastly both intensity and honesty. All 
the grand, manly, and penetrating traits are instinc- 
tively quickened in the sympathetic observer of the 
best marble representations of Demosthenes. They 
are relaxed in presence of the statues of JEschines. 

In the Palace of the Conservator on the Capitoline 
stands a full length statue of Julius Csesar, which, 
as many critics afiirm, is the most complete and au- 
thentic representation of him that exists in the world. 
The brain is massively full in every direction ex- 
cept height. The length of the head from the ear 
to the centre of the ej^ebrows is very great. Car- 
lyle calls this the surest sign of talent. The length 
from the ear to the upper corners of the forehead 
is great. Probably, however, the intellectual region 
of the brain is not as massive as that of Socrates ; 
and yet the breadth of the forehead, as seen from the 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 207 

front, is fully equal to that of the Stagyrite, -whose 
bow, as Grote says, no man, since the hemlock did 
its work, has been found strong enough to bend. 
The head is far from being as high as that of Soc- 
rates or Plato, Homer, Euripides, or Shakespeare. 
The lips are finely cut and exceedingly sensitive, 
and the upper one almost poetic, although they are 
firm enough to be those of a statesman and general. 
The eyes are large, very penetrating, forceful, com- 
manding, and by possibility imperious, though never 
cruel or malicious. They are full of dignity, and 
of a grave Roman kind of self-respect and magna- 
nimity. Two long, horizontal furrows in the middle 
of the forehead, the somewhat hollowed cheeks, and 
the great thoughtfulness of the general look give an 
impression to the observer that Caesar is careworn, 
but by no means that he is not at peace with him- 
self and equal to any emergency. The jaws are 
strong, and yet the cheeks are neither coarse nor 
preponderatingly heavy as parts of the countenance. 
The neck is not thick and short, as in Nero ; it is 
large, but also long. The shoulders and bust are 
massive without being too sturdy for the general 
symmetry of the form. 

In a mild climate, hardly any better style of dress 
could be invented than the Capitoline Csesar wears. 
Here are what might be called, in modern phraseol- 
ogy, sandals, skirt, a breast-plate, waistcoat, armlets, 
and a shawl, and nothing more in sight. The knees 
and lower arms, as is usaal with the statues of Roman 
emperors, are as naked as the knees of Scotch High- 
landers. There is a sash tied with two carefully 



208 OCCIDENT. 

arranged bows about the waist. On the lower part 
of tlie tunic or breast-plate are two griffin-like forms 
sculptured in relief ; the lower edges of this garment 
are skirted by scollops containing each the head of 
a lion, or man, or ram, or goat. The sandals are 
attached to the ankles by a series of straps, them- 
selves tied in knots, with flowing ends, about leather 
or cloth wraps for the ankles. The right hand 
holds a small globe or ball, and hangs by the side ; 
the left is raised and the fingers close slightly to- 
ward the palm. Csesar, as represented in the famous 
bust of the Naples Museum, and in the full length 
statue of the Palace of the Conservator at Rome, 
fits his character in history, and the demands the 
imagination and judgment naturally make in ad- 
vance as to what his countenance should be. I 
prefer the Naples bust to all others of Csesar, as I 
do the full length statue at Rome to every other rep- 
resentation of him there ; but the two portraits are 
so exceedingly alike that if the one be admitted, as 
the Naples bust is, to be an authoritative likeness, 
the other must be. Seen from the right side of the 
statue, the resemblance is most striking, as the left 
side at Rome shows only the injured right side of 
the face. What breadth of forehead and fulness of 
the whole cerebral might in the Naples bust ! What 
fineness, force, and self-respect in the lips ; what 
magnanimity and determination and sagacity in the 
forehead, eyes, and general atmosphere of the coun- 
tenance. It is to be noticed, however, that the bust 
does not possess the Socratic or Platonic or Shake- 
spearian height of the coronal region; yet in no 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 209 

other respect is the organization lacking in fulness 
of equipment. The two vertical and the two hori- 
zontal furrows in the forehead, the hollowed cheeks, 
and the strong expression of care do not destroy the 
feeling the observer has that this man is substan- 
tially at peace with himself, and would be so in al- 
most any possible emergency. It is not difficult to 
see that he could be general and statesman easily, 
and orator besides, but not a seer, or poet, or prophet. 

Hadrian appears with more fine work in his like- 
ness at Naples than at Rome, but, as at Rome, he 
looks capable of secret cruelties and sensualities, al- 
though wonderfully gifted with intellectual, artistic, 
and governing power. The organization is fine ; the 
lips thin and sensitive, without a trace of weakness. 
The observer is convinced that Hadrian could easily 
have travelled on foot under sun and rain, as he did, 
from Britannia to Asia Minor, and thence to Spain, 
and at the same time that he might have been his 
own architect and the patron of all men of letters. 
But the face indicates, too, how Sabina, his wife, 
may have had reason for putting herself to death. 

Pericles at Naples, in his helmet, resembles so ex- 
ceedingly the Pericles of the Vatican, that one nat- 
urally trusts the portrait. Gracefulness, power, and 
self-respect flood the face ; the equipment is that of 
statesman, poet, and philosopher, though hardly that 
of the general. Aspasia at Rome, in the Vatican, 
has a round, full head, somewhat flat in the coronal 
region, but in general enough like that of Pericles to 
have made her his companion by similarity of char- 
acter, and not merely because she was a supplement 

14 



210 OCCIDENT. 

or complement of his nature. It would be hard in- 
deed to say what Pericles needed as a complement of 
his natural endowments, he is so fully and symmet- 
rically equipped. A certain Csesarian sternness and 
capacity for success on the battle-field is almost all 
he lacks. 

Euripides in the Naples bust moves me exceed- 
ingly by the prophetic height of the head, the depth 
of the forehead, and the terribly penetrating and 
serious eyes. He looks upon life from a vast height 
and with a mind that is at once telescopic and mi- 
croscopic. 

Herodotus and Thucydides in the busts at Naples 
the critics call very authoritative likenesses. Cer- 
tainly their contrasts are of extreme interest, espe- 
cially that of the genial thoughtfulness of the He- 
rodotus with the severer, finer, and perhaps more, 
thoughtful, but less cheerful face of Thucydides. 

Antoninus Pius has almost a modern face, so 
thoroughly do better traits of character than the 
Koman emperors generally possessed shine out from 
it. The Naples bust, too, is better finished than any 
other I have met of this ruler, who made Roman 
history almost a blank from 138 to 161, by causing 
a suspension of war, violence, and crime. 

Homer at Naples is represented as at all points 
agreeing with the type seen in the three Capitoline 
busts ; but the combination of sensitiveness, aspira- 
tion, and devouring spiritual energy, on the one hand, 
with entire inward peace, on the other, is, perhaps, 
more successfully represented in the expression of 
the Naples bust than in that of either of the others. 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 211 

I never weary of studying tlie sublime blind eyes, 
the wonderfully eloquent clieeks and lips, and the 
sad but nowhere weak furrows of forehead and face. 
He was a kind of Olympian himself, capable of act- 
ing Achilles' part, and that of Agamemnon too, as 
well as of singing them. The bold fulness of the 
lower part of the forehead, the great length from 
nose to ear, and height from ear over to ear are 
very noticeable. The head is as high as Walter 
Scott's, or that of Euripides, but much longer than 
either from the ears forward. 

From Naples, while Vesuvius shows its fire and 
fills the soft air with strange thunders, you sail 
away with Richter's " Titan " open on your knee, 
past Capri, Sorrento, Sicily, and the hoarse, black 
swirls of Scylla and Charybdis. After rough toss- 
ing on the vexed Mediterranean near Cape Malea, 
your ship pauses in the harbor of the Pirpeus. Un- 
der the most marvellously brilliant midnight stars, 
you drive to Athens. 

Advanced thought in Greece must be learned from 
the ghosts of the great souls of her antiquity, and 
they yet fill all her classic air, above land and sea. 

In 1873 it was my fortune to spend a whole night 
alone on the Acropolis [see Appendix] ; another 
night alone at the summit of Mount Parnassus; sev- 
eral days at Delphi ; a day at Marathon ; a day at 
Salamis; a night on the Plain of Troy. In 1881 
I was once more at Athens, and everything mod- 
ern there had changed for the better. It is pathetic 
to find Greece at last opening on the Acropolis and 
in the heart of Athens national museums for the 



212 OCCIDENT. 

sacred remnants of her own ancient art, whicli have 
been pillaged hitherto for the enrichment of the mu- 
seums of all Western Europe. Fifty years ago not 
a book could be bought at Athens. I hold in my 
hand at this moment the Year Book of the Univer- 
sity of Athens, printed in classical Greek. The ex- 
amination papers in it are as searching as any ever 
issued at Harvard or Yale, at Cambridge or Oxford. 
I counted in 1881 thirteen very tall factory chimney- 
stacks in the Piraeus, not one of which was there at 
my first visit, in 1873. I bought, at a single pause 
of my carriage in the main street of Athens, a col- 
lection of a dozen newspapers now issued in that 
metropolis, all in beautiful Greek. Hear [shaking 
one of the papers before the audience] the latest 
rustle of Demosthenes among the ages ! In Athens 
the ancient days of Greece are yet your chief teach- 
ers. As you wander through the olive groves of the 
Cephissus and the Ilissus, and hear the ^gean wind 
among the columns of the Temple of Jupiter, and 
stand again on the Bema, Mars Hill, and the Acrop- 
olis, you renew a trance of historic sympathy from 
which you hope never to wake. 

Two letters, actually written the one face to face 
with the precipices of Delphi and the other at the 
summit of ]\It. Parnassus, recall a few of the high ex- 
periences of your interviews with Greek history and 
its Ruler and with Greek Nature and its Author. 

Delphi, July 11. 

So powerful is the impression which this Gorge of 
Delphi and Mt. Parnassus towering above it 8,000 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 213 

feet have made upon me, that I do not doubt that 
the wild beasts that once wandered here were, in a 
certain sense, religious. No wonder, therefore, that 
this stern and sublime scenery should have caused 
the Greeks to locate here the most revered of all 
their oracles. As I write on my knee in the crisp, 
clear, Greek morning air, I look into that magnifi- 
cent amphitheatre at the southern foot of Parnas- 
sus, where, terrace above terrace, Delphi stood at 
the edge of precipices almost perpendicular and 
nearly 2,000 feet high. The Castalian spring sends 
out its crystalline, murmurous brook from the roots 
of the giddy mountain walls. In 1870 an earth- 
quake destroyed a large part of the village, of which 
the remnants are yet here, and choked up the res- 
ervoir cut in the rock at the spring. I have drunk 
of the water at the most celebrated point at the 
eastern side of the ancient Delphi, where the unde- 
caying fountain leaps out from the reddish gray 
cliffs. I have spent many hours among the few and 
pathetic ruins left of the temple of the Oracle. But 
the grandeur of the scenery continues to make upon 
me to the last an impression more distinctly relig- 
ious than I ever received from mountains or chasms 
before. The historical atmosphere accounts for this 
in part. Probably, also, the indescribable magnifi- 
cence of the thunder and lightning and lashing 
showers which were moving over Parnassus and ad- 
jacent heights as I approached Delphi, yesterday, 
through the fat olive orchards of the Crissean plain, 
account for another portion of the peculiar influence 
which Delphi exerts upon me. 



214 OCCIDENT. 

The valleys are tropically luxuriant m their 
growths of olives wherever living streams or irriga- 
tion can reach the thirsty soil ; but the mountain 
slopes are desolate. Only an exceedingly stunted 
shrubbery, not tall enough to be called copse, covers 
their gray sides. A very uneven sprinkling of green 
appears on their sharply outlined spikes and bosses. 
Nevertheless, the Gorge of the Pleistus is filled with 
rich vineyards. The olives creep more than half 
way up the long slope of the thirty-seven terraces I 
can count between the bottom of the valley and the 
Castalian spring. 

The air is alive with the murmur of bees. They 
feed here, as at Mount Hymettus, on the odorous 
wild thyme. The modern village overflows with the 
sound of gushing rills. Yonder stretches the green 
Crissean plain full of vineyards and olives down to - 
the very shore of the far flashing Corinthian Gulf. 
Apollo's Shrine is hushed forever ; but the Delphi 
precipices, the heights of Parnassus, and the Cas- 
talian spring are a perpetual oracle. 

Summit of Parnassus, July 13. 

God's name, if any man who is sufficiently thought- 
ful dares speak it, seems to be the only word that 
should be uttered on such mountain tops as this of 
Parnassus. 

I came here at 5.15 yesterday afternoon, and am 
writing now at 5.15 on the following morning, hav- 
ing passed the whole night alone on this summit, 
8,066 feet above the sea. 

If the cramped handwriting shows that I am a 



ADVANCED THOUGHT IN ITALY AND GEEECE. 215 

little chilled, it proves, nevertheless, that I am not 
shivering ; and the ink is certainly not below the 
freezing point. My thermometer has fallen at no 
time below 38°. With the aid of a thick blanket and 
my Scotch plaid, and two woollen undergarments, I 
have passed a not greatly uncomfortable night here 
Avithout fire, I was told by excellent guides that the 
ascent of Parnassus at this season was dangerous 
on account of the snows and the cold. In order to 
travel well, one must have a soldier's capacity of 
physical endurance. If I had brought with me two 
more blankets, I could have slept here six hours, 
unless disturbed by robbers and brigands. As things 
were, I slept very soundly about two hours. But I 
did not come to this height to sleep, and needed no 
effort to keep myself awake. 

No single outlook in Greece commands a view 
over the whole of the famous historical territory ; 
but this summit of Parnassus is celebrated for over- 
looking more points of interest than any other height 
in Greece or perhaps in the world. 

From here Mount Olympus bounds the view north- 
ward. The great ranges near Corinth and in the 
Peloponnesus close the prospect southward. On the 
east the ^gean and on the west the Ionian Sea is 
visible. Imagine what the details must be in an 
outline so magnificent. 

The rugged height behind the pass of Thermop- 
ylae lies yonder under the fresh morning light. I 
look on Ossa, Pelion, and Olympus at a distance, 
and with a glass the Vale of Tempe itself can be 
made out. Boeotia, Argolis, Elis, and Arcadia are 



216 OCCIDENT. 

in view. All tlie nortliern and middle tracts of 
Greece are spread forth as a map. The mountains 
that divided the territories and induced so much po- 
litical division in Greece roll northward, and north- 
eastward, and westward, and, beyond the Gulf of 
Corinth, southward, like waves of the sea. The eye, 
from this flinty, and once volcanic summit where the 
Nine Muses dwelt, sweeps above every other height 
except one in the chain of Olympus. I have seen 
sunset, moonrise, and sunrise here. All through the 
night, except an hour or two, bells tinkled liquidly 
from the high mountain folds. At midnight the 
constellation of the Cross hung exactly above me. 
Eagles float here now in the majesty of the morn- 
ing. 



APPENDIX, 



WITH 



ADDITIONAL LECTURES, 



APPENDIX I. 



THE DECLINE OF RATIONALISM IN THE GERMAN 
UNIVERSITIES.! 

I. GOD IN GEEMAK HISTORY. 

Strauss is in his grave ; Baur's doubts are solved 
in the unseen ; Schleiermacher and Neander are 
asleep on the hill slope south of Berlin ; Fichte and 
Hegel lie at rest beneath the lindens in a cemetery in 
the same city ; Kant has a peaceful tomb at Konigs- 
berg ; Richter, at Baireuth, among his native Fichtel- 
gebirge ; De Wette, at Basle, at the edge of the Alps ; 
Goethe, Schiller, and Herder, no disquiet wakes at 
Weimar ; Tholuck has closed, and Julius Miiller, 
laden with more than three -score years and ten, 
draws near the end of his victorious journey ; Aus- 
tria has been humbled, Sedan fought, German unity 
accomplished. 

The formation of the new German Empire marks 
broadly the close of a great period in German his- 
tory, extending from Frederick the Great to Bis- 
marck, from Voltaire to Strauss, from the French 
Revolution to Sedan. 

1 A lecture delivered before the Students of Andover Theological 
Seminary and of the Yale Divinity School, and repeated in Boston, 
Concord, and several churches of Eastern Massachusetts. 



220 APPENDIX. 

Curiously enough, the measurable political peace, 
coming after terrific struggle to the whole nation, co- 
incides with the measurable intellectual peace com- 
ing after terrific struggle to the most cultivated 
classes. There have been deluges of unrest ; but 
conclusions are being reached as to political unity, 
and also as to Christianity. The greatest questions 
in the mental and in the political life of Germany 
are approaching repose in the same period, and that 
our own. 

It is an exceedingly suggestive sign of the times 
that, in proportion to population, Great Britain has 
but one student in a course of higher university edu- 
cation where Germany has five.^ In this age it is 
from Germany that decisions in momentous intellec- 
tual questions proceed. Every day the world grows 
more international. There are now no foreign lands. 
It has been said that in England one is never quite 
outside of London, because the city inflames the whole 
island. So, in science, one is never quite outside of 
the German universities, for they inflame the whole 
field of culture. 

Suppose that there were to be lifted from the waste 
of some ocean a new continent, peopled by a class of 
men equal to the Greeks in intellectual power, and 
their superior in candor and learning. Let moral 
culture abound in the family life of the nation, but 
let church life be weak; let political causes choke 
the church ; let wars storm over the territory ; let 

1 Arnold, Professor Matthew, Higher Schools and Universities in 
Germany, pp. 148, 149. London. 1874. Compare Hart, German 
Universities, p. 322. 1875. 



APPENDIX. 221 

public discussion be free only in philosophy, theology, 
and art ; let system after system of metaphysical 
speculation arise, reign briefly, and be superseded; 
let the universities of the nation lead the world in 
modern science ; let Christianity, probed to the in- 
nermost by restless spirits, with no outlet in politics 
for their activity, take its chances among this peo- 
ple ; let it go through many a struggle ; let it ask no 
assistance, and fight ever at a disadvantage ; let it be 
partially triumphed over in appearance ; let it rally ; 
let it prevail ; let it come forth crowned : we should 
say, if God were to lift such a continent, with such 
a history, from the Atlantic, that He had spoken to 
men. But such a people, with such a history. He has 
lifted, in the last century, in Germany, from the 
deeps of time. 

II. THE MISCHIEF OF FEAGMENTARINESS. 

What have been the causes of the poAver of ration- 
alism in Germany in the last hundred years ? 

What are the proofs of the decline of rationalism 
in the German universities ? 

Who are the dead, the wounded, and the living, 
after the battle of a century ? 

Chief among the difficulties with which faith in 
Germany has contended has been one-sidedness in 
the presentations of Christianity. Science without 
earnestness, or earnestness without science — these 
were the two halves of German theological thought 
a century ago. Most mischievous, almost fatal, was 
the fragmentariness of a cold, speculative orthodox- 
ism, on the one side, and of a warm, unspeculative 



222 APPENDIX. 

pietism, on the otlier.^ If Spener and Wolff could 
have been rolled into one man ; if Francke and Sem- 
ler could have lived in one head, perhaps English 
deism and Voltaire and his skeptical crew at Freder- 
ick's court had never stung, or, if they had stung, 
had never fly-blown, the fair, white, honest breast of 
Germany to fevers and eruptions. 

Average German natures are not as well balanced 
as the English, although broader and more subtile in- 
tellectually, and deeper in nearly every phase of the 
inner life, except only those royal English traits, 
self-esteem and the love of power. 

There are three types of German heads : that of 
Goethe, or the regular ; that of Schiller, or the irreg- 
ular ; that of Bismarck, or the thick, high, and round. 
A head of the Schiller type in theology knows little 
of the pietistic side ; a head of the Goethe type, little 
of the philosophic ; only a head of the Bismarck type 
combines the two. The regular type is often, like 
Goethe, powerful in the intuitive and imaginative, 
and not so in the distinctively philosophical faculties.^ 
The irregular type may have great imaginative and 
philosophical, but lacks intuitive, power. A German 
philosopher with the irregular head of a Schiller ^ is 

1 Compare Farrar's Critical History of Free Thought, Lecture vi. ; 
Hagenbacli's German Rationalism; its Rise, Progress, and Decline. 
vii.-xi. T. & T. Clark. 1865. 

2 " Ein Kerl, der speculirt, 

1st wie ein Vieh, auf diirrer Heide 
Von einem bosen Geist lierumgefiihrt, 
Und rings umher ist grune Weide." — Goethe. 
^ " His form ... at no time could boast of faultless S3^mmetry. 
He was tall and strongly bowed, but unmuscular and lean. . . . His 
face Avas pale, the cheeks and temples rather hollow, the chin some- 
what deep and slightly projecting, the nose irregularly aquiline." — 
Carlyle, Collected Works, Life of Schiller, p. 223. 



APPENDIX. 223 

sure to be one-sided, and yet may be as endlessly 
acute and imaginatively brilliant as lie is unbalanced. 
Heads of the Bismarck type naturally devote them- 
selves to statesmanship or to positive science ; and 
it will be found that a line of such brains, like Von 
Moltke in war, Trendelenburg, Nitzsch, Dorner, 
Tholuck, and Julius Miiller in theology, Kiepert in 
geography, Lepsius in archseology, and Curtius in 
history, have exhibited the balanced thought of the 
nation. 

No one has read German history, if he has not il- 
lustrated the narrative by the portraits of the leaders 
of thought.^ Eccentric systems, in Germany as else- 
where, have come from small or irregular brains, as 
in the cases of Strauss, Schenkel, and Schopenhauer. 

in. DISUSE OF THE DISTIXCTIOX BETTTEEX COX- 
VEETED AXD UXCONVERTED. 

Fruitful, exceedingly, among the causes of the 
power of rationalism in Germany, has been the ab- 

1 " In all my poor historical investigations, it has been, and always 
is, one of the most primary wants to procure a bodily likeness of the 
personage inquired after ; a good portrait, if such exists ; failing 
that, even an indifferent, if sincere one. . . Every student and reader 
of history who studies earnestly to conceive for himself what manner 
of fact and man this or the other vague historical name can have 
been, will, as the first and directest indication of all, search eagerly 
for a portrait ; for all the reasonable portraits there are; and never 
rest till he have made out, if possible, what the man's natural face 
was like. Often I have found a portrait superior in real instruction 
to half a dozen written biographies, as biographies are written ; or 
rather, let me say, I have found that the portrait was as a small lighted 
candle by which the biographies could for the first time be read, and 
some human interjiretatiou be made of them." — Carlyle, Collected 
Works, vol. xi. pp. 241, 242. 



224 APPENDIX. 

sence, not from its religious doctrines, bnt from its 
cliurch forms, of that distinction between the con- 
verted and the unconverted so familiar in Scotland, 
England, and the United States. 

'' I regret nothing so much," said Professor Tho- 
luck to me once, with the emphasis of tears in his 
deep, spiritual eyes, ''as that the line of demarcation 
between the church and the world, which Jonathan 
Edwards and Whitefield drew so deeply on the mind 
of New England, is almost unknown, not to the 
theological doctrines, but to the ecclesiastical forms 
of Germany. With us confirmation is compulsory. 
Children of unbelieving, as well as of believing, fam- 
ilies must at an early age be baptized, and profess 
faith in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Without a 
certificate of confirmation in some church, employ- 
ment cannot be legally obtained.^ After confirma- 
tion, the religious standing is assumed to be Chris- 
tian ; after that, we are all church members. Thus 
it happens that in our state churches the converted 
and the unconverted are mixed pell-mell together." 

Is Bismarck a Christian ? I asked once of an ac- 
complished German teacher. " Why not ? Is he a 
Jew ? Is he a Mahometan ? " was the reply. To 
ask in Germany if a man is a Christian, in the Eng- 
lish, Scotch, or American sense of that question, you 
must use expletives : Is the man a real, a shining, 
an exemplary Christian ? for the unexplained word, 

1 In a few of the cities of North Germany infamous licenses were 
granted to women for an infamous employment, but only after the 
applicants for licenses had exhibited to the licensing officer their cer- 
tificates of confirmation ! 



APPENDIX, 225 

whicli in our colloquial use means that a man is con- 
verted, in Germany means only that he has been 
confirmed. 

Pastoral care of the mass of the population is, 
of course, very inefficient under this vastly maladroit 
organization of the German state church; public and 
private devotional meetings' languish; church disci- 
pline is often no more than a name.^ 

" We have no Sabbath-schools in Heidelberg," 
said a distinguished and Christian professor of the 
Heidelberg University to me once ; " and, with ex- 
ceptions not worth mentioning, there are none in 
Germany .2 We do not need them ; for the instruc- 
tion you give in America in Sabbath-schools, we give 
in the secular schools. In our common week-day 
school-instruction an hour is specially set apart for 
teaching the children the biblical histories and the 
catechism.^ 

^ Compare Schaff, Professor Philip, Germany, its Universities, The- 
ology, and Religion, chap. xi. See, also, his instructive contrasts be- 
tween German and American church life, in Der Burgerkrieg und das 
christliche Leben in Nord Amerika. Berlin. 1866. 

2 " The rightly so-called American Sunday-schools, . . . since 
Mr. Woodruff visited us in 1863, have augmented to about one thou- 
sand, and the number of children therein instructed by more than 
four thousand young men and women to about eighty thousand." — 
Krummacher, Rev. Hermann, Christian Life in Germany. Report of 
Evangelical Alliance, p. 82. New York. 1873. 

^ I copy from my notes written at Heidelberg some account of a 
favorable specimen of the religious teaching in German schools. 
" Friday, Nov. 22. This morning, from eight to nine, I witnessed the 
religious instruction which is given to one of the upper classes in the 
Lyceum of Heidelberg. Twenty-six boys of about fourteen years of 
age were : 1. Questioned on the second chapter of Genesis ; 2. Fur- 
nished by their teacher with further explanations of the history j 
3. Made to take down in writing from dictation certain heads sum- 
15 



226 APPENDIX. 

"But what you explain as a solemn public pro- 
fession of faith on entrance into membership with 
a church does not exist in Germany. The distinc- 
tion which you say prevails in New England, and 
America generally, between persons "who have made 
such a profession of faith and of a renewed character 
and those who have not, — the former being called 
church-members, and distinctively Christians, while 
the latter are not, — is a distinction not in use with 
us. We are all confirmed in youth, and after confir- 
mation are all members of the church, and all known 
as Christians. 

" What you describe as a gathering among church- 
members for devotional purposes, or a prayer-meet- 
ing, does not exist with us, except among the very 
severely orthodox. Here in Heidelberg, among the 
higher orthodox, there are small meetings called con- 
venticles, held from house to house, in private .rooms, 
but not in the church. Our theological students do 
not have prayer-meetings. 

marizing the instruction. Strauss himself could hardl}' have tripped 
np the explanations given by the teacher, whom I took for a young 
minister. The history was called ' a symbolical representation of the 
ideal and actual state of man ; of the circumstances arising in the 
human dispositions under temptation ; of the action of conscience 
before, during, and after sin.' The conversation of the woman with 
the serpent illustrated, first, doubt as to the authority of the moral 
law; secondly, the force of passion in presence of its objects; lastly, 
remorse and shame. Symbolical repi'esentation of the action of con- 
science was what the history was explained to be. On the whole, I 
was pleased witli the exercise ; although the substitution of such in- 
struction for Sabbath-schools leaves the churches very inert. There is 
in the Lyceum, this teacher told me, a Catholic, and also a Jewish 
religious exercise. The Protestant, such as I saw, occupies two hours 
a week. ' Wir haben keine Sonntag Schulen,' said this teacher, when 
I spoke of schools of that kind in America." 



APPENDIX. 227 

"What you explain as pastoral visitation is not 
practised with us, unless in a few country churclies. 
You will find something in books as to our theory of 
pastoral care ; but it is by no means the general cus- 
tom of our preachers to visit their people for the 
purpose of conversation on personal religion. Were 
a pastor to open conversation on the personal re- 
ligion of a man, in the man's house, the repl}^ would 
probably be : ' There is the door ; you can go out, or 
I must.' 

" If a student in the University were to lead a dis- 
orderly life here at Heidelberg, and yet were a mem- 
ber of Peter's Kirche, where the most of the profes- 
sors worship, the church, as such, would do nothing 
to call him to account. You ask what the pastor 
would do in such a case : he preaches on Sunda}", and 
nothing farther is within the limits to which he is 
expected to confine himself.^ Family life in Ger- 
many would do what it could to bring to a sense 
of his duty any immoral person ; but the church 
preaches, and does not visit or exercise discipline in 
such cases as you say often result in the exclusion of 
a person from church membership in New England. 
In very extreme cases, indeed, the University expels 
privately a disorderly student." 

At Halle, at Berlin, at Leipzig, at Dresden, at 
Gottingen, and at Heidelberg, I looked in vain for 
Sabbath-schools and prayer-meetings. 

Halle has led the religious life of Germany for a 
hundred and fifty years ; and yet, said Professor 

1 Compare Tholuck, Das academische Leben des 17'^^ Jalirhun- 
derts. 



228 APPENDIX. 

Tlioluck to me : " There are no devotional meetings 
in our churches worth attending. It may be said 
that, according to the Scottish and New England 
idea, the state churches of Germany have no prayer- 
meetings. Once a week, in the churches of Halle, 
there is a biblical exercise. The pastor always 
leads ; and the only remarks that are made, he 
makes. Sometimes, in this exercise, a Christian 
member of the audience offers a prayer ; but this is 
all. Our theological students may know more He- 
brew, Greek, and philosophy than yours ; but most 
unfortunately, as they have had no training to such 
gatherings in the state churches, they do not come 
together in devotional meetings as yours do. Bene 
orasse, est bene studuisse, you understand better than 
we. I have been subjected to no distress in my lec- 
ture-room greater than that caused by the fact that 
our churches leave unsupplied, in the minds of the 
students, that devotional seriousness and elevation 
which are the only fit preparation for scientific study 
of religious truth. I beseech you not to judge of 
the condition of religion in Germany by the condi- 
tion of our state churches." ^ 

1 " Die veranderte Ansicht vom Verhaltuisse der Kirche zum Staat 
hatte eiiie Veranderun^ der Stellnng des Geistlichen zur Folge. Je- 
mehr die Thomasiassche Ansicht vom Geistlichen als Staatsdiener 
sich verbreitet, desto mehr schwindet der religiose Nimbus, mit welchem 
der geistliche Stand bisher umkleidet gewesen : er tritt in der Eeihe 
die Staatsdiener." — Tholuck, Geschichte des Rationalismus, Erste 
Abtheilung, p. 167. "In the year 1808 all consistories, both upper 
and lower, were swept away; and until some considerable time after 
our war of deliverance, our evangelical churcli existed without even 
the breath of one single church institution or authority. The gov- 
ernment transacted all the former business of the consistories. ... I 



APPENDIX. 229 

Most assuredly must an American maintain, how- 
ever, that the health of religion in a nation depends 
on a mens sana in corpore sano ; the universities are 
\hQ mind, but the church training of the people is 
the body ; and when the latter, as in Germany, is 
seamed through and through with weakness and dis- 
ease, how can the former remain sound ? The eye 
for religion is not cultivated by the training which 
in Germany usually precedes theological study. The 
moral atmosphere of the German universities exhales 
from broad marshes of confessedly stagnant state 
church life ; and it is in the condition of the vapors 
which these neglected, steaming, batrachian flats 
cast up, that the wonders some German university 
telescopes have seen in the sky find an important 
explanation. Face to face with the nearly omni- 
present lack of what New England and Scotland 
call spiritual cultivation, I, for one, did not, when in 
Germany, and meditating long on the banks of the 
Rhine, the Saale, the Neckar, the Ilm, the Spree, the 
Elbe, and the Danube, feel impressed with a tenth 
part of the intellectual respect for German skepti- 
cism which it is not uncommon to find in the minds 
of untravelled men in America. 

A noble, but religiously neglected people, naturally 
honest and earnest, the German masses, as in the 
days of Tacitus, made a kind of religion of family 
life. Hegel was proud of the fact that Gremilthlich- 

see no help for German Christendom, save in the formation of 
churches. Yes, churches ! That is my watchword, — my loud, cry- 
ing appeal to the Church of Germany, which needs churches. They 
are the sole condition of life for the church." — King Frederick Wil- 
liam IV. Two Treatises. 1845. 



230 APPENDIX. 

heit^ the name for what he considered the most char- 
acteristic trait of the Germans, is a word without 
any equivalent in French or English ; ^ kindness of 
nature, tenderness, soulfulness are, perhaps, the best 
English expressions for it ; and this quality, conjoined 
with the renowned German sincerity, gives the na- 
tion a capacity for religious culture excelled by that 
of no other on the globe, and fit to make it the mis- 
sion of Germany, as Hegel thought it was, to bear 
through the ages the Christian principle. But the 
capacity is as yet unoccupied. 

Studying often and searchingly the faces of the 
common people in the market places of Europe, I 
used to think that to produce a salutary effect by 
speaking to them on religion, I should need a day 
with the Germans, and succeed on the merits of the 
case ; an age with the English of the lower orders, 
and succeed only when my cause had become respect- 
able among the upper classes; a millennium with 
the French, and succeed then only to expect a revo- 
lution of opinion every three days. 

IV. CONTAGION FEOM FHANCE. 

Moral, intellectual, and social contagion from 
France must be mentioned with painful emphasis 
among the causes of the power of rationalism in Ger- 
many. 

Voltaire and Frederick the Great at Sans Souci : 
you know the story made so brilliant by Carlyle.^ 

1 Hegel, Philosophy of Historjj, part ix. sect. 1, chap. 1. 

2 " There is nothing in imaginative literature superior in its own 
way to the Episode of Voltaire in the Fritziad. It is delicious in hu- 



APPENDIX. 231 

From the time of Louis XIV. to that of Napoleon, 
the numberless petty courts of Germany took their 
ideas of morality and taste from Paris and Versailles 
almost as slavishly as Frederick tlie Great took his 
literary fashions from Voltaire. Think, too, of the 
humiliations of Germany under Napoleon, when his 
personal rule extended from the Tiber to the Elbe, 
and when Leipzig and Berlin had passed into king- 
doms dependent on France. Until Lessing's day, 
French taste ruled German literature ; there was no 
German literature. Even Goethe thought his coun- 
try unwise in resisting Napoleon ; and the war of 
liberation, by the colossal blows of Leipzig and Wa- 
terloo, only fractured a yoke which it is to be hoped 
that Sedan has broken completely in twain. 

In Halle, in 1872, I found in a large circulating 
library, in the best bookstore of the city, patronized 
by respectable people, and within a bow-shot of the 
University, a complete set of eighteen or twenty vol- 
umes of the works of an infamous French writer, 
whose productions, if exposed for sale in London, Ed- 
inburgh, or Boston, would be seized by the police, or 
would ruin the reputation of vendor and purchaser, 
— a great exception, no doubt, in Halle,^ — but the 
books were worn black by use. 

mor, masterly in minute characterization. ... It is in such things 
that Mr. Carlyle is beyond all rivalry, and that we must go back to 
Shakespeare for a comparison." — Lowell, Professor James Russell, 
My Study Windows, Carlyle, p. 135. 

1 The wise and patriotic Frederick Perthes wrote, in 1826 : "When 
I was a child enlightenment occupied the place of religion, and free- 
masonry that of the church. Men of culture knew the Bible only by 
hearsay. . . . During the first ten years of my esta.blishment at Ham- 
burg, I sold not a single Bible except to a few bookbinders in the 



232 APPENDIX. 

I had not been in Paris a week before I was per- 
manently cured of all intellectual respect for French 
skepticism. Tacitus says the ancient Germans 
whipped the adulteress through the streets and buried 
the adulterer alive in the mud.^ But Julius Caesar 
speaks of polygamous practices among the Gauls, 
and describes them as showy, cruel, and volatile.^ 
Thomas Carlyle calls Paris the city of all the devils.^ 
" Poor Paris," T heard him say once in his study at 
Chelsea, " they have done nothing there but lie for 
eight hundred years." Bismarck, speaking with face- 
tious seriousness, says, that if you take from the av- 
erage native Parisian — not the Frenchman, who is 
a different character — his tailor, the hair-dresser, 
and the cook, what is left is Red Indian. These men 
ought to know France ; but if their representations 

neighboring country towns ; and I remember very well a good sort of 
man who came into my shop for a Bible, and took great painS to as- 
sure me that it was for a person about to be confirmed, fearing, evi- 
dently, lest I should suppose it was for himself. . . . Since the 
French Revolution, the rod of divine chastisement has not been 
wielded in vain on our lacerated country. The sensual, godless fri- 
volity of the last century wanders about only as a dusky, obsolete 
ghost." — Perthes, Frederick, Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 243, 246. 

1 " Inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant ; nee aut 
consilia earum aspernantur aut responsa negligunt. . . . Quamquam 
severa illic matrimonia, nee ullam morum partem magis laudaveris. 
Nam prope soli barbarorum singulis uxoribus contenti sunt. . . . Pau- 
cissima in tarn numerosa gente adulteria ; quorum poena prsesens, et 
maritis permissa : accisis crinibus, nudatam, coram propinquis ex- 
pellit domo maritus ac per omnem vicum verbere agit. Publicatge 
enim pudicitise nulla venia. Non forma, non setate, non opibus 
maritum invenerit." — Tacitus, Germanice 8, 18, 19. Cf. Csesar, Z)e 
Bello Gallico, vi. 21. 

2 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, iii. 19 ; vi. 16-19. 

3 Carlyle, The French Revolution, passim. 



APPENDIX. 233 

fit tliis century less well than the last, in the city 
which is the play-ground and sewer of Europe, it is 
yet certain that average Paris is politically and mor- 
ally the city of little boys. For ethical and ethno- 
logical reasons, it is of no consequence what is thought 
of theology by Paris. There are several chambers 
lacking in the tj^pical Parisian brain. In Germany 
can be found everything good but elegance ; in 
France, nothing good but elegance. Eternity is not 
visible from Paris. 

V. SUFFERING OF GERMANY IN EUROPEAN WARS. 

Demoralization of the people by protracted and al- 
most incessant European wars deserves a high rank 
among the causes of the power of rationalism in Ger- 
many, even in the last century. 

'' Scratch a Russian," said Napoleon, " and you 
will find beneath the surface a Tartar." Scratch 
peasant-life in Central Europe once, and you find the 
wars of the first Napoleon ; twice, and you find the 
Thirty Years' War ; thrice, and you find the Lliddle 
Ages. 

After the sack of Magdeburg, Tilly cast six thou- 
sand bodies of the citizens into the Elbe, and the 
river was choked by the mass. Soldiers in the Thirty 
Years' War were largely foreigners and mercenaries, 
and paid, from necessity and on principle, in beauty 
and booty, Cossacks, Walloons, Croats, Italians, 
Irishmen, and Turks fought with Scots, Dutchmen, 
Danes, Swedes, Laplanders, and Finns. Germany for 
a generation was a howling hunting-ground for the 
rabble of all nations. One hundred years, to a day, 



234 APPENDIX. 

after the Augsburg Confession was promulgated, that 
is on June 24, 1630, John Winthrop was sailing into 
Boston Harbor, and Gustayus Adolphus was landing 
fifteen thousand men in Pomerania. For a hundred 
years after that date, the plundering bands of Wal- 
lenstein did not disappear. From fear of starvation, 
a Swedish general, in the second half of the war, re- 
fused to lead an army through the once fat plains of 
the Oder and the Elbe, from the Baltic to the Saxon 
Switzerland. When Louis XIV. stole Strasburg, in 
1681, the dead German Empire was too feeble to re- 
sent the robbery. The Turks, at the instigation of 
the French king, swarmed far up the Danube, and 
laid down forty-eight thousand lives in a nearly suc- 
cessful siege of Vienna. The Thirty Years' War 
gave to death half of the population of Germany. It 
left her divided into more than three hundred petty 
states, each with the right to declare war and make 
peace ; and into fourteen hundred yet pettier polit- 
ical fragments, each with the same right, and each 
depending upon a peeled peasantry for the means of 
feeding the ostentation and leprosies of courts filled 
with nobles often unable to read or write, and com- 
bining with soundly orthodox belief incredible coarse- 
ness, dulness, and savagery. Shivering the once or- 
derly and majestic German constellation into aster- 
oids, it left in existence no central sun. It allowed 
merely asteroid princes to acquire such power that 
for two centuries national unity was impracticable. 
It subjected all Germany to the inroads of French 
armies. It brought into fashion French manners. 
Switzerland and the Netherlands, at one time a part 



APPENDIX. 235 

of the empire, were giyen up at the Peace of West- 
phalia. In Switzerland Germany lost its best for- 
tress, and in the Netherlands its best port; in the 
former, its surest defence against attack by the Ro- 
mance nations ; in the latter, its surest means of in- 
fluence on the sea and in remote regions of the world. 
Great before, for two centuries after the close of the 
Thirty Years' War, Germany founded no colony on 
any shore and showed no flag on any ocean.-^ 

When the French, in 1689, blew up the towers of 
Heidelberg; swung a firebrand up and down both 
shores of the Rhine ; filled the Palatinate with the 
hungry, the naked, and the frozen ; scattered to the 
winds, at Spires, the splintered cofiins and violated 
dust of the German emperors ; and at Treves, Jiilich, 
and Cologne compelled the peasants to plough down 
their standing corn, Louis XIYth's plan was to pro- 
tect himself from Germany by making the Palati- 
nate, and the middle region of the Rhine, a desert. 

With Frederick the Great came war on war ; with 
Napoleon, war on war. Csesar's robe was not so full 
of dagger-rents as is German soil of battle-fields. In 
German-speaking lands lie Magdeburg, Liitzen, Nord- 
lingen, Prague, Rossbach, Hohenlinden, Austerlitz, 
Eylau, Aspern, Erlingen, Wagram, Jena, Leipzig, 
Waterloo, Langensalza, Sadowa, and Koniggratz, — 

"Poor dumb mouths, ... 
Mark bow the blood of Csesar followed them." 

1 Compare Bancroft, History of the United Slates, vol. x. p. 83 ; 
Menzel, Wolfgang, Geschichte der Deutschen, 5 Aufl. 1856 (Eng. 
trans, in Bohn's Library) ; Menzel, Karl Adolf, Neuere Geschichte 
der Deutschen, 2 Aufl., 6 Bde. 1856. 



236 APPENDIX. 



VI. POLICE CHETSTIANITY AS THE ALLY OF ABSO- 
LUTISM. 

Support given by state churches to absolutism in 
politics, and the consequent alienation of the masses 
of the population and of the more progressive of 
the educated class, ought to be named early in any 
enumeration of the causes of rationalism in Ger- 
many. 

Too often in Europe the cause of infidelity is that 
the Bible has been forced down the throats of the 
people with a bayonet, or food taken from starving 
lips by aristocracies whose throttling and thievish 
action a state church has blessed. " I daily thank 
God," said Chevalier Bunsen, on his dying bed, " that 
I have lived to see Italy free. Now twenty-six mil- 
lions will be able to believe that God governs the 
world." ^ Red republicanism as yet makes white re- 
publicanism impossible in Europe. Still in the trance 
of perpetuated horror of the French Revolution, 
church and state in Germany in 1848 united in re- 
sisting the demands of the people for political re- 
forms. Until very lately, any too marked agitation 
for German unity itself has been choked with a strong 
hand, and the churches applauded the act. Christ- 
lieb says, " that for two centuries the law of German 
history has been that infidelity grows strong under 
oppressive, and weak under just, civil regulations." ^ 

1 Bunsen, Memoirs of, vol. ii. p. 562. 

2 " Nothing like the old bureaucratic system to produce and foster 
rationalism. . . . Since the reawakening of political life, the popular 
favor towards materialistic theories seems to have sensibly dimiu- 



APPENDIX. 237 

Evil exceedingly is that day in a nation when relig- 
ious and political interests flow in opposite direc- 
tions ; these opposing currents make the whirlpool 
that impales faith on the tusks of the sea. The Ger- 
man population of the ruder sort look on the preacher 
as merely a governmental agent, and scoff at his 
teaching as " Police Christianity." It must never be 
forgotten that the Romish is in Germany one of the 
state churches, and by compact organization and re- 
ligious loyalty that the subtle creed that the church 
governs the world, the pope the church, and the Jes- 
uits the pope, has almost power enough to disinte- 
grate the new empire. As Bismarck and Gladstone ^ 
are at this moment proclaiming, patriotism and Jes- 
uit ultramontanism, now as of old, mingle no better 
than water and fire. 

Vn. LmiTATIONS AND STIMULATIONS OF THE UNI- 
VEESITIES. 

Limitation of free discussion, in the universities 
and elsewhere, to philosophy, theology, and topics not 
connected with the civil life of the nation, has a prom- 
inent place among the inciting causes of German ra- 
tionalism. 

Political discussion is not free inside or outside of 
the universities in Prussia. Politics absorb an ex- 
ceedingly small portion of the talent of educated men. 
Compared with the swirling, devouring whirlpool of 
political discussion in England or America, German 

ished." — Christlieb, Professor Theodore, of the University of Bonn, 
Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, p. 18 (Eni^. trans.). 1874. 

1 Gladstone, Hon. W. E., Pamphlets on The Vatican Decrees, and 
Vaticanism. 1875. 



238 



APPENDIX. 



civil life is an unruffled sea.^ Great waves, unknown 
here, roll there in science, philosophy, and theology. 
Look into the bookstores at the Leipzig fairs, or into 
the university lecture lists to get reports of this com- 
motion among the educated class, and not into the 
newspapers. Under a vigorously paternal govern- 
ment, newspapers have little power, and so attract 
little talent. Accordingly there are no newspapers in 
Germany ; at least, none at all comparable for ability 
or influence with the leading sheets of the English 
or American press. The universities in Germany ab- 
sorb that huge amount of intellectual activity which 
America and England diffuse through an awakened 
and multitudinously throbbing public life. General 
enthusiasm in politics does not exist in Prussia, still 
less in the smaller states of the empire. 

It is only upon scientific, philosophical, and liter- 
ary topics that discussion in the universities is fully 
free. In the absence of great political and social 
themes, the stream of intellectual activity, which 
never runs shallow in Germany, shut off from one 
of its natural channels, turns its whole force upon 
philosophy, science, and theology. If the result 
has in many respects been excellent, in many also it 
has been mifortunate ; for the very current that has 

1 " A disinterested love of truth can hardly coexist with a strong 
political spirit. In all countries where the habits of thought have 
been mainly formed by political life, Ave may discover a disposition to 
make expediency the test of truth. . . . It is probable that the capac- 
ity of pursuing abstract truth for its own sake, which has given Ger- 
man thinkers so great an ascendency in Europe, is in no slight degree 
to be attributed to the political languor of their nation." — Lecky, 
Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii. p. 145. 



APPENDIX. 239 

made the channel deep has borne with it a drift-wood 
of utterly secular, turbulent, and intriguing spirits, 
whose natural outlet would have been politics, and 
who had no calling, except from necessity, to discuss 
any other theme. 

The brilliancy of a German professor's success de- 
pends much on the size of his audience ; and he is 
under no inconsiderable temptation to secure hearers 
by novelty of doctrine. 

The professor is chosen for his merit as a special- 
ist ; he attracts hearers by his fame as a specialist ; 
his rank is estimated according to the extent of the 
additions he has made to knowledge as a specialist ; 
his ambition for scholarly renown leads him to seek 
perpetually to find or invent some new thing as a 
specialist. 

Competition for hearers is intensely keen at times 
under the operation of the peculiar system of the uni- 
versity lectures, supported largely by the fees paid 
by students who voluntarily subscribe to hear certain 
courses. 

There is rivalry between the professors of the three 
different orders — regular, extraordinary, and candi- 
date. The Privat Bocent of a German university is 
really a candidate professor, and one of his offices is 
to keep the regular professors strenuously wakeful 
by competition. 

This rivalry is intensified by the custom in Ger- 
many of assembling in circles of instructors at the 
universities always a majority of the brilliant men of 
learning of the whole country. In England one may 
count among those in the last fifty years distinguished 



240 APPENDIX. 

for learning, at least a score who had no connection 
with universities ; but in Germany one can find in 
that period hardly any such. Macaulay, Carlyle, 
Mill, Grote, like our own Prescott and Irving, never 
were professors in a college. But in Germany if any 
learned person has anything to say, he is usually pro- 
vided by the government with a chance to say it in 
lectures to students at some university centre. 

Undoubtedly the German universities, on all top- 
ics within their range, have at present more power 
than the German nobility to set the fashions of pub- 
lic thought. 

No one can enter the civil service or a learned 
profession in Germany, except through the gate of a 
state examination, at the close of a university course 
of study. The secret of the national power of the 
German universities is in this close connection with 
the state. " The university," says Bismarck, ." ex- 
ists for imperial purposes." The American and the 
English universities do not rest on state preparatory 
schools, or end in the state service. The German 
university rests on the state gymnasiums, and ends 
in the civil service and learned professions. ^ 

America governs by majorities, England by an 
aristocracy, Germany by universities. 

All life in Prussia has an organization so utterly 
different from that in New England, that although 
in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Oxford, or London, an 

1 " The Frencli university has no liberty, and the English universi- 
ties have no science ; the German universities have both." — Arnold, 
Professor Matthew, Higher Schools and Universities in Germany, p. 
166. London. 1874. Compare, also, Hart, German Universities. 
New York. 1875. 



APPENDIX. 241 

American feels himself yet hardly out of America, 
he will not have that feeling in German}^, not even 
in the highest places of learning. Modern German 
society is a spiritual landscape, with stagnant flats 
and reedy marshes extensive as those of the Baltic 
provinces themselves ; but also with wide tracts 
thrown up, like South Germany, into Thuringian 
hills and Saxon Switzerlands, or even into Alpine 
peaks, on which day strikes first and lingers longest. 
Examined more closely, however, the novelties which 
surprise an American are seen to be arranged in a 
most definite order. Prussian society consists of 
these seven parts : the king, the civil service, the 
army, the universities, the nobility, the tradesmen, 
the peasants. I assign the universities a rank as a 
class, and that rank next higher than the nobility; 
for such is now, according to the best German critics, 
their relative position.^ Acting in the eye of the 
nation, and on this elevated stage of public respect, 
German professors are stimulated as no other univer- 
sity teachers in the world are, both to excellence and 
to rivalry. 

I find in these circumstances the explanation of 
the fact that the German universities are the best 

1 ''After the Reformation nearly all eminent men in Germany — 
poets, philosophei's, and historians — belonged to the Protestant 
party, and resided chiefly at the universities. The universities were 
what the monasteries had been under Charlemagne, the castles under 
Frederick Barbarossa — the centres of gravitation for the intellectual 
and political life of the country. . . . The intellectual sceptre of 
Germany was wielded by a new nobility . . . that had its castles in 
the universities." — Milller, Professor Max, German Classics, Pref- 
ace, xxvi. 

16 



242 APPENDIX. 

now in existence, and also of the circumstance that 
among the multitude of their productions they have 
given to the public some most wild and perishable 
systems of thought.^ 

Vin. RISE AND FALL OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS. 

Complete or partial overthrow of many celebrated 
schools in philosophy on which theology had un- 
wisely been made to depend, is a recent cause of the 
power of rationalism in Germany, especially of the 
later materialistic phases of unbelief, which sneer at 
metaphysics as an impossible science. Never since 
Plato and Aristotle has so much metaphysical ability 
been displayed as by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel ; but in Germany Fichte and Schelling are 
obsolete ; Hegel, obsolescent ; Kant, only, has foun- 
dations upon which this century dares to build. 

A Herbart, a Beneke, a Rothe, a Trendelenburg, a 
Schopenhauer have come and gone ; but, for twenty- 
five years no commanding system of philosophy has 
arisen in a land which in philosophical gifts possesses 
the primacy of the world. A return to Aristotle 
and Kant has distinguished the later German meta- 
physics. To-day, in the hands of a Kuno Fischer, 
the history of philosophy is made to attract almost 

1 "Professorial knight-errantry still waits for its Cervantes. No- 
where have the objects of learning been so completely sacrificed to 
the means of learning ; nowhere has that Dnlcinea, — knowledge for 
its own sake, — with her dark veil and her barren heart, numbered so 
many admirers ; nowhere have so many windmills been fought, and 
so many real enemies left unhurt, as in Germany, particularly during 
the last two centuries." — Miiller, Professor Max, German Classics, 
Preface, xxvii. 



APPENDIX. 243 

as mucli attention as pliilosopliy itself ; ^ and in those 
of a Hermann Lotze,- metaphysics and physics are 
jointed together as the opposing ribs of a new vessel, 
which, perhaps, is destined to endure the shock of 
wind and wave where fleets ribbed with metaphysics 
only went down, even with Schellings, Fichtes, and 
Kegels at the helm. But neither Lotze nor Fischer 
pretends to undertake, what was the joy of older 
admirals, the circumnavigation of the yet uncircum- 
navigated globe of philosophy. These giants, among 
costly wrecks, pace to and fro sadly on the ocean 
shore. They do not set sail ; and yet they perform 
for thought an incalculable service, by keeping the 
world in view of the limitless horizons. Meanwhile, 
oat of sight of the sea, in the marshy interior of a 
grovelling materialism, a Moleschott and a Carl Vogt 
can assert that there is no ocean; and even the pygmy 
Biichner, from lack of height of outlook, through 
twenty editions of a shallow book, can proclaim the 
impossibility of both metaphysics and religion. 

IX. DOCTRINAL UNREST OF THE AGE. 

The doctrinal unrest of the age in most, from the 
acquisition of new facts in many, departments of 
thought, is a chief force in all modern history, and 
has been exceedingly efficient among the causes of 
German rationalism. Nearly every other branch of 
human inquiry besides theology has been supplied 
with a new method and new materials within a cen- 
tury ; and it was neither to be expected nor desired 

1 Geschichte der neueren PJulosophie, 6 Baude. 

2 Mikrokosmos, 2 Baude. Leipsig. 1872. 



244 APPENDIX. 

that scholars would not seek a new method for the 
latter science ; and it was to be expected, though not 
desired, that when they could not find copious new 
materials for it, they would invent them. Really 
new materials, however, have been brought to the- 
ology in the last century from the department of ex- 
egetical research. An age of new truths and facts 
is necessarily a period of unrest as to old ones. Al- 
though ultimately it may be found that the old and 
the new agree, acquisition of fresh materials for be- 
lief, and the crystallization of those materials around 
ancient beliefs, are processes which do not succeed 
each other without an intervening space of investi- 
gation and uncertainty. It is upon precisely these 
intervening spaces in history that skepticism has 
seized as battle-fields, only to lose them one by one, 
in a long line of defeats reaching now through 
eighteen centuries. But there never was a more 
important intervening space of this sort than the 
last age in Germany, except the first age of Chris- 
tianity in Asia and Europe. 

X. STATE AID TO EATIONALISTIC SECTS. 

State aid to rationalistic churches I class among 
the causes that have given rationalism power to 
make a noise in Germany. If a majority in a church 
at Heidelberg, for instance, vote for a rationalistic 
preacher, they can have him, and yet retain state 
aid. In America, under the voluntary system, ra- 
tionalistic organizations soon disband, for they have 
not earnestness enough to pay their own expenses. 
But, in Germany, loaves and fishes keep them to- 



1 



APPENDIX. 245 

getlier under tlie endlessly yicious practical arrange- 
ments of the state churches. 

There are three methods of arrangmg the relations 
of church and state : separation, or the American 
j)lan ; exclusive establishment of one confession, or 
the English plan ; concurrent establishment of sev- 
eral confessions, or the German plan. Catholics, 
Lutherans, and Calvinists had equal civil rights se- 
cured to them by the Peace of Westphalia, Even 
in Prussia, Romanists to-day have larger gifts from 
the public treasury than Protestants. Confessional 
equality, a great watchword, having in it the ago- 
nies and blisses of German religious life for cen- 
turies, is a cry never hypocritically uttered by the 
lips of Prussia. 

But, although dissenters from the three recognized 
confessions have had no formal help from the state, 
it has been the theory of each establishment that 
the whole population must be baptized. Until very 
lately, every family, believing or unbelieving, was 
obliged to cause its children to profess faith and pass 
the rite of coufirmation, or incur for the children the 
gravest civil disabilities. Thus, in practice, all dis- 
senters have been really within, and not without, the 
church. In many of the smaller principalities, indi- 
vidual churches have become predominantly ration- 
alistic, and yet have retained their income from the 
state. 1 

1 " Half, at least, of the destructive power of European infidelity 
in past generations has been due to the presence of the party within, 
instead of without, the church." — President Warren, of the Boston 
University, Evangelical Alliance Report, p. 253. New York. 1873. 



246 APPENDIX. 

XI. CATHOLICISM IN SOUTH GERMANY. 

Catholicism, covering all South Germany, and 
stimulated to act the part of mere reactionary Ro- 
manism by influences from beyond the Alps and the 
Rhine, I rank as a powerful cause of German ration- 
alism, for it has prevented half the German people 
from seeing what a church can accomplish ; made the 
lives of vast peasant populations a prolonged child- 
hood ; disgusted scholars by its absurdities of doc- 
trine ; resisted the progress of the nation toward 
Protestant unity ; and seeks now to destroy an em- 
pire whose power is the best guaranty of both peace 
and progress in Europe. 

Pope Boniface wrote to Philip the Fair of France : 
" Boniface to Philip, greeting : Know thou, that thou 
art subject to us both in spiritual and temporal 
things." The king replied : " Philip to Boniface, 
little or no greeting : Know thou, O supreme fool, 
that in temporal things we are not subject to any 
one." Such would now be the answer of America 
or England or Scotland to similar pretensions ; such 
is to-day the answer of Germany. If necessary, this 
answer would be given by Great Britain or the 
United States through the cannon's mouth ; if nec- 
essary, it will so be given by the German Empire. 
Ultramontanism against nationality is the simple 
issue between the pope and Bismarck. First a Cath- 
olic and then a citizen, or first a citizen and then a 
Catholic, is the ancient question Berlin debates with 
Rome. In the long struggle between the civil and 
ecclesiastical power, England stood three hundred 



APPENDIX. 247 

years ago where German}^ stands to-day. By the 
celebrated bill passed in 1581 "to restrain her majes- 
ty's subjects in their due obedience," parliament as- 
serted in principle all that now causes outcry against 
the sternness of Prussia toward Romanists of tlie 
disloyal type. Summarizing with fairness the his- 
tory of Ultramontanism for five hundred years, Bis- 
marck said once to the Prussian parliament that " the 
goal which, like the Frenchman's dream of an un- 
broken Rhine boundary, floats before the papal party 
— the programme which, in the time of the mediae- 
val emperors, was near its realization — is the sub- 
jection of the ciyil power to the ecclesiastical." ^ 
William I. writes to Pius IX. that Catholic citizens 
of Germany, at the instigation of Ultramontanism, 
conspire against the unity and peace of the empire. 
Pius IX. replies : " Every one who has been baptized 
belongs to the pope in some way or other." ^ 

Henry IV., in smock and barefoot, stood three 
days in the snow before the palace of Pope Hilde- 
brand at Canossa, imploring absolution. In 1872 
Bismarck said of the German Empire : " We are not 
going to Canossa, spiritually or physically." But it 
was by barel}" a majority of one that great, rich, Ro- 
mish Bavaria was brought to the aid of the rest of 
Germany in the war of self-defence against Napoleon 
III. France echoed the scorn of Philip the Fair in 
his famous answer of contempt to the pope ; she is 
to-day governed by Ultramontanism. Canossa is 
not the goal of the centuries ; but the feet of one 

1 Bismarck, Speech in the Prussian House of Lords, March 10, 1873. 

2 Letter of Pius LX. to the Eraperor William, Aug. 7, 1873. 



248 APPENDIX. 

hundred and eighty millions of the human race yet 
tread its snows. 

XII, SUMMARY OF CAUSES. 
These, then, in my judgment, are the ten chief 
causes of the power of skepticism in Germany in the 
last century. 

1. Fragmentary presentations of Christianity in 
the spirit of earnestness without science, or of sci- 
ence without earnestness. 

2. Maladroit organization of the German state 
church ; first, in the use of compulsory confessions 
of faith at the confirmation legally required of the 
whole population, whether believing or unbelieving ; 
and secondly, in the absence of the familiar Ameri- 
can and English distinction between the conyerted 
and the unconverted, and in a consequently stagnant 
church life. 

3. Moral, intellectual, and social contagion from 
France. 

4. The demoralization arising in Germany from its 
having been the principal theatre of European wars. 

5. Support by the church of a popularly odious 
absolutism in politics. 

6. German university life in its peculiar limita- 
tions and stimulations of free discussion. 

7. The overthrow of several celebrated German 
systems of philosophy. 

8. The doctrinal unrest of the age in most, from 
the acquisition of new facts in many, departments of 
thought. 

9. State aid to rationalistic organizations. 



APPENDIX. 



249 



10. Roman Catliolicism in South Germany. 

I am aware liow difficult it is to present in proper 
perspective a complicated array of causes and effects 
extending through an hundred years; and that, for 
patriotic and political reasons, even candid German 
writers do not always arrive at a frank admission of 
the pow*er of some of these causes. But whoever has 
read between the lines in European history, and list- 
ened to the whispered as well as to the spoken and 
printed thought of Germany, will recognize in this 
analysis her own unpublished judgment of herself. 
On such authority, it is well to be able to assure the 
superficial skeptic, that, in the most learned land on 
tlie globe, rationalism had several other sources of in- 
fluence besides its own intellectual merits.^ In view 
of these enumerated causes, it is not surprising, nor 
to a scholar's faith is it intellectually annoying, that 
skepticism has had power in Germany, and that it 
yet retains power among the slightly educated. 

Xm. EMPTY RATIONALISTIC AND CROWDED EVAN- 
GELICAL LECTURE -ROOMS. 

In the German universities the incontrovertible 
fact is that the rationalistic lecture-rooms are now 
empty, and the evangelical crowded ; while fifty or 
eighty years ago the rationalistic were crowded, and 
the evangelical empty. 

Lord Bacon says that the best materials for proph- 

1 As was to be expected, one of the places in Boston where infor- 
mation on the decline of rationalism in the German universities ap- 
pears to be needed, is the Radical Club, yet misled by Hegel, on 
whom Transcendentalism built so arrogantly and incautiously forty 
years ago. 



250 APPENDIX. 

ecy are the unforced tendencies of educated young 
men. Take up any German year book, look at the 
statistics of the universities, ascertain which way the 
drift of educated youth is now setting in the most 
learned circles of the world, and you have before you 
no unimportant sign of the times. 

But, in looking for this, you come upon another 
sign no less important, namely, that the leading uni- 
versities of Germany are now, and eighty years ago 
were not, under predominant evangelical influence. 

Berlin, beyond doubt the University of first impor- 
tance, and hallowed by the great names of Schleier- 
niacher, Neander, and Trendelenburg, is theologically 
led by Dorner, Semisch, Steinmeyer, and Twesten 

— staunch defenders of evangelical faith. 

Leipzig, with Kahnis and Luthardt and Delitzsch 

— and lately Avith Tischendorf — among her profess- 
ors, contests with Berlin for the first place, and in 
the opinion of many deserves that rank, and is the 
renowned traditional seat of an orthodoxy which at 
some points New England and Scotland — agreeing 
in the main with the present attitude of Berlin — 
might consider excessive. 

Halle, whose theology permeates Germany, both 
from the University and from Fran eke 's famous Wai- 
senhaus, has in it Tholuck, and Kostlin, and K ab- 
ler, and Guericke, and Jacobi, and Schlottmann, and 
Julius Miiller, known throughout the world as antag- 
onists, and as successful antagonists, of the subtlest 
forms of skepticism. It is not uncommon to hear 
J alius Miiller spoken of as the ablest theologian of 
Germany. 



APPENDIX. 251 

Tiibingen itself, where Strauss put fortli one of 
his earlier works, and Baur founded a theological 
party, has had in it for years no Tubingen school, 
but, through the professorships of Beck, Palmer, 
and Landerer, is permeated by vigorous evangelical 
influences. 

Heidelberg, under the theological leadership of 
Schenkel, Hitzig, Gass, and Holtzmann, is to-day the 
only prominent University of Germany given to 
views that can be called rationalistic. 

Now, which of these institutions is most patronized 
by German theological students ? Halle and Berlin 
may be compared, in a general way, as to their the- 
ology, with Andover and New Haven ; Leipzig, with 
Princeton ; and Heidelberg, with the Unitarian por- 
tion of Cambridge. 

I found Dorner's, Miiller's, and Tholuck's lecture- 
rooms crowded, and Schenkel's empty. In 1872-73 
there were but twenty -four German theological stu- 
dents at Heidelberg ; and I have heard Schenkel 
often, and never saw more than nine, eight, or seven 
students in his lecture-room. Against twenty-four 
German theological students at Heidelberg, there 
are one hundred and thirty -two at Leipzig, two 
hundred and fifty-seven at Halle, two hundred and 
thirty-nine at Berlin. But, counting both the native 
and the foreign theological students in these institu- 
tions, the whole number at rationalistic Heidelberg 
is thirty -four; at evangelical Halle, two hundred 
and eighty-two ; at evangelical Berlin, two hundred 
and eighty ; at hyper-evangelical Leipzig, four hun- 
dred and twelve.^ 

1 Meyer, Deutsches Jahrhuch. Erster Jahrgang, p. 1002. 



252 APPENDIX. 

It must be remembered that German students 
often change universities, as occasionally American 
students change theological schools, — passing one 
period in one and another in another, according to 
the attractions of different professors. It is imma- 
terial to the German student where he hears lec- 
tures, provided he is prepared to pass with credit 
the severe final examinations. When a professor is 
called from one university to another, a large num- 
ber of his hearers often follow him. Thus it is a 
fair test of the direction of the drift of educated 
youth in Germany, to point to the fact that they 
give their patronage to evangelical, rather than to 
rationalistic, professors, and this in the overwhelm- 
ing proportion of ten to one. 

XIV. TESTIMONY OF THOLUCK, DOENEE, CHEIST- 
LIEB, SCHWAEZ, AND KAHNIS. 

" By far, by far," was Professor Tholuck's con- 
stant answer, when asked by foreign students if or- 
thodoxy is not stronger in Prussia than fifty or eighty 
years ago. 

In 1826, at Halle, all the students except five, who 
were the only ones that believed in the Deity of our 
Lord, and all the professors of the University united 
in a petition to the government against Tholuck's 
appointment to a professorship there, and the oppo- 
sition rested solely on the ground of his evangelical 
belief.^ The students at Tiibingen, not far from the 
same date, ceremoniously burned the Bible. " When 

1 Tholuck, Letter to the New York Meeting of the Evangelical Alli- 
ance. Report, 1873. 



APPENDIX. 253 

I came to Halle," said Professor Tholuck to me once, 
as he walked up and down that famous, long, vine- 
clad arbor in his garden where his personal inter- 
views with German and foreign students have ex- 
erted an influence felt in two hemispheres, " I could 
go twenty miles across the country and not once find 
what, to use an English word, is called an experi- 
mental Christian. I was very unpopular. I was 
subjected to annoyance, even in my lecture-room, on 
account of my evangelical belief." " His adversaries 
are bold and cunning. A baptism of fire awaits him 
at Halle," wrote Frederick Perthes of the young pro- 
fessor, in 1826.1 

Contrast these murky threats of Tholuck's morn- 
ing with the clear sky of his westering sun. In De- 
cember, 1870, he had completed so much of a half 
century of work at the University of Halle that 
three days were given by his friends to the celebra- 
tion of the event. There were social gatherings and 
suppers and speeches at the hotels. All the halls 
and staircases of Tholuck's residence were crowded 
with guests. The Emperor William sent to him the 
Star of the Red Eagle. Court preacher Hoffmann 
brought to him the salutations of the ecclesiastical 
council as to a veritable church father of the nine- 
teenth century. The various universities of Ger- 
many were represented by their ablest professors. 
Pastors of different cities sent delegations. A letter 
to Tholuck was received signed by theologians at 
that hour in the army before Paris. An immense 
torch-light procession of students filled a night with 
Luther's hymn : — 

1 Perthes, Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 268. 



254 APPENDIX. 

" Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.*' 

"No one can deny," Professor Tholuck would say 
to me repeatedly, " tliat since tlie death of Frederick 
the Great, or the French Revolution, or the opening 
of the century, or even since fifty or forty years ago, 
there has been a great reaction in Germany against 
infidelity and rationalism. 

"You are right in pointing to the impotence of 
the edict issued in favor of orthodoxy by Frederick 
William II. on the death of Frederick the Great, as 
proof that it has not been the favorable attitude of 
the state towards orthodoxy that has caused the re- 
action. Frederick the Great had no influence to pro- 
mote skepticism in the lower and middle, but he did 
mischief among the upper classes. 

" Frederick William III. and Frederick William 
IV. were favorable to orthodoxy ; and William I., 
our emperor, is thoroughly so. Much depends on 
the attitude of the court at Berlin in respect to the 
churches. In Weimar, however, a preacher without 
belief in the Deity of Christ, and with denial of 
miracles, may be connected with the state church. 
In respect to orthodoxy, Weimar is one of the most 
lax of all the provinces of Germany. It would prob- 
ably not be true to say that in the small territory 
of Weimar, infidelity is less powerful than fifty 
years ago, although that is most certainly the case 
in Prussia. 

" Hagenbach has written a ' History of the Rise, 
Progress, and Decline of German Rationalism,' and 
his book I put first into the hands of foreign students 
coming to Germany and asking information from 



APPENDIX. 255 

me. I am myself writing a work on the same sub- 
ject. 

"As to men of science and professors in the phil- 
osophical faculties with us, they are often unin- 
formed concerning theology ; but materialism makes 
much less noise in Germany than in England. If 
a man is a materialist, we Germans think he is not 
educated." 

On account of their having little freedom to dis- 
cuss political, German professors are intensely jealous 
of their liberty to discuss literary, scientific, phil- 
osophical, and theological topics. Whoever has 
breathed the quickening oxygen of the atmosphere 
of a German university will understand very well 
that it is by no means the changed attitude of the 
state toward orthodoxy that has brought about the 
reaction against rationalism. Skepticism had its 
greatest power under Frederick William II. and 
Frederick William III., who opposed, as much as 
Frederick the Great had favored, rationalism. In 
Germany it is almost a proverb that the soul of a 
university is made up of LeJir Freiheit and Leim 
Freiheit. 

" No," said Professor Dorner, in his study at Ber- 
lin, when I mentioned Professor Tholuck's opinion of 
Weimar ; " rationalism even in Weimar and Thu- 
ringia was quite as strong fifty years ago as it now 
is." 

''' That is nothing " (Das ist nichts')^ he remarked 
emphatically, and added no more, speaking of the 
rationalism of Renan. 

" The writers who discuss materialism," he said, 



256 APPENDIX. 

"are in Germany more anti-dogmatic than ethical. 
As to the rationalists themselves, we have more who 
agree with Channing than with Parker. 

" The mass of our preachers are genuine believers, 
but among the populace one can sometimes find infi- 
delity. The mass of our divines are convinced ; but 
they are too contentious. In Prussia, unbelief is 
much weaker than fifty years ago, or in the time of 
Frederick the Great. Then rationalism was the loyal 
theology. Most certainly, most certainly, rational- 
ism in Germany, taken as a whole, is plainly and by 
far weaker than fifty years ago." 

" The proposal," says Professor Christlieb, " to 
implore the divine blessing and assistance on the de- 
liberations of the Frankfort parliament in 1848 was 
received with shouts of derisive laughter." " For 
the last thirty years," he writes, "in spite of all 
hostilities, a truly Christian science has begun vic- 
toriously to lead the way, by new and deeper ex- 
egetical researches ; by historical investigation ; by 
pointing out the remarkable harmony existing be- 
tween many new archaeological, ethnological, and 
scientific discoveries. In the pulpit of by far the 
greater number of the German churches, and in the 
theological faculties of most of the universities, it 
has so completely driven unbelief out of the field, 
that the latter has been compelled to retire, in a 
great measure, into the divinity schools of adjacent 
countries, — Switzerland, France, Holland, Hungary. 
When compared with these and other countries, Ger- 
many shows that unbelief has a greater tendency 
to insinuate itself into, and to make its permanent 



APPENDIX. 257 

abode among, half-educated, rather than thoroughly- 
educated, communities." ^ 

" So much is to be confessed," says court preacher 
Schwartz of Gotha, author of the acutest ^ of the 
histories of recent theology, " Schleiermacher's work 
has been incomparably more enduring, and quietly 
and inwardly transforming, than Hegel's. Schleier- 
macher's influences yet advance, while those of He- 
gel are exhausted and dead." ^ 

"It is spring," said Professor Kahnis of Leipzig, 
in 1874. " The period since the wars of liberation 
represents the conflict of the newly quickened heat 
of the German mind with the masses of snow and 
ice of the Aufklarung. Until to-day the conflict en- 
dures ; but ever mightier grows the sun, ever weaker 
the winter." * 

This testimony of German professors to the fact of 
the decline of skepticism in the German universities 
I might make voluminous ; but it is enough to show 
the accord of confidential and colloquial with printed 
testimony, and the agreement of five such author- 
ities as Tholuck, Dorner, Christlieb, Schwarz, and 
Kahnis. 

1 Christlieb, Professor Theodore, Modern Doubt and Christian Be- 
lief, pp. 18, 63. 

2 Farrar, A. G., Critical History of Free Thought, Bampton Lec- 
tures, Preface, xxv. 

^ Schwarz, Dr. Carl, Oherhofprediger und Oberconsistorialrath zu 
Gotha, Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, Vierte Auflage, 25. Leip- 
zig. 1869. 

* Kahnis, Professor K. F. A., Der innere Gang des deutschen Pro- 
testantismus, Driite Ausgahe. Zweiter Theil, 162. Leipzig. 1874. 
These four are the best recent works on German Rationalism. 
17 



258 APPENDIX. 

XV. SEPARATION OF CHUECH AND STATE. 

Both the Prussian Constitution and the funda- 
mental statutes of the German Empire alike declare 
that the evangelical church shall be free to manage 
its own internal affairs. Schleiermacher himself, in 
1808, drew up for the king a sketch of a church con- 
stitution which foreshadowed much that is now be- 
coming law. The cabinet order of Frederick Wil- 
liam III. gathered, in 1817, the Lutheran and Re- 
formed churches into an evangelical union. The 
contest with Romanism has now obliged Prussia to 
give to that union as much independence of the state 
as Romanists enjoy. The eight provinces of the old 
Prussian kingdom, that is to say, nearly all the Prot- 
estants of North Germany, are being drawn together 
under one church constitution, of which the principle 
is essentially Presbyterian. The effects are likely to 
prove inauspicious to rationalism, which has steadily 
resisted the abolition of the bureaucratic manage- 
ment of the ecclesiastical and religious life of the 
nation. 

Church and state in Germany are slowly separat- 
ing; the bureaucratic tutelage and bondage of the 
church are becoming things of the past ; a deter- 
mined purpose is exhibited, on the part of both gov- 
ernment and scholars, to call out a regulated relig- 
ious activity among the masses of the people. As 
the German peasantry and middle class have never 
been taught to give money freely for religious organ- 
izations managed by themselves ; as the rationalism 
outgrown in the universities has only too much power 



APPENDIX. 259 

with the populace, especially in the large towns ; as 
Sabbath -schools and prayer -meetings, and all the 
machinery of the voluntary system in church affairs, 
are in Germany conspicuous by their absence, the sep- 
aration of church and state in the empire will not 
occur without many most painful temporary disad- 
yantages.i ^}^e poorer clergy will starve for a time, 
and there will be wide tracts of baptized torpor and 
unbaptized indifference and paganism in the religious 
life of the lower classes. Ultimately, however, when 
the dangers of allowing religious marshes to go un- 
drained have become sufficiently evident and alarm- 
ing, and the impotence of rationalism to drain mala- 
rious soil has received adequate illustration, German 
sagacity and honesty will cause the stagnant fens of 
German church life to wake with currents which, it 
is to be hoped, will one day make of its green, sedgy, 
and pestilential pools a clear, flashing, and brimming 
river. 

XYI. GEEMAN PRIMACY IK EIJEOPE. 

Immense commercial, political, and moral advan- 
tages accrue to Germany from her unity, sought in 
agony for two hundred years. Schiller did not hesi- 

1 *' In many sections of Germany, especially the northern regions, 
where Lutheranism prevails, the congregations are almost as passive, 
dependent, and incapable of self-government as in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, and Luther's complaint of the want of material for elders 
and deacons must be repeated in this nineteenth century after Protes- 
tantism has been in operation for more than three hundred years. 
The people are only expected to be ruled, and hence they have no 
chance to learn individual and congregational self-government, which 
must be gradually acquired, like every other art." — Schaff, Professor 
Philip, Germany, its Universities, Theology, and Religion, pp. 112, 113- 



260 APPENDIX. 

tate to say that Europe was sufficiently compensated 
for the horrors of the Thirty Years' War by an in- 
creased sense of the interdependence and need of 
union among its nations.^ At Sadowa, in 1866, at 
the close of the battle which gave to Central Europe 
Prussian and Protestant, instead of Austrian and 
Romish leadership, and ended a struggle which Fred- 
erick the Great began, the sun came forth from un- 
der heavy clouds in the low west, and the united 
armies of North and South Germany, struck by the 
omen, gathered around their commander and sang : — 

"Now all thank God!" 

In that late hour the Reformation first became polit- 
ically an assured success in the land of its birth. 
Sadowa is Germany's best hope of internal, Sedan 
her best hope of external, freedom from war. 

But whenever Germany, beaten down almost con- 
stantly under the hoofs of military strife, has had 
time to catch breath, she has shown a recuperative 
power that has astonished all Europe. In the thirty 
years after the battle of Waterloo, her soil was not 
once touched by war, or by the tread of foreign 
troops. Her historians assign to that period her first 
real recovery from the effects of the Thirty Years' 
War. In 1818, bold, wise, indefatigable Prussia 

1 " Aber Europa ging uniinterdruckt und frei aus diesem fiirch 
terlichen Krieg, in welchem es sich zum erstenmal als eine znsammen- 
gehiingende Staatengesellschaft erkannt hatte ; iind diese Theilneh- 
rniing der Staaten an einander, welche sich in diesem Krieg eigent- 
lich erst bildete, ware allein schon GcAvinn genug, den Weltbiirger 
mit seinem Schrecken zu versohnen." — Schiller, Geschickte des 
dreissigjdhrigen Kriegs, Sdmmtliche Werke, v. 2. 



APPENDIX. 261 

abolislied all duties upon goods in transit through its 
own territories. For commercial purposes Germany 
became a unit in 1828. Even under the imperfect 
league of ZoU Verein her navy was the third in ex- 
tent in the world. Agriculture grew prosperous. 
Capitals of princes were not the only cities distin- 
guished for wealth and culture. At the mere dawn of 
that national unity and peace, of which the full sun- 
rise was at Sedan, commerce in Germany awoke from 
the dead. The rapid growth of Cologne, Breslau, 
Magdeburg, Nuremberg, and Berlin amazed Vienna 
and wounded Paris. The overshadowing and swift- 
ly-increasing prosperity of Germany and her ap- 
proaches to politic?! unity drew upon her the attack 
of Napoleon III. Sedan opened to Victor Emmanuel, 
Rome ; to the angels Peace and Union, entrance on 
German soil ; to Napoleon, his grave ; to contagion 
from France, an antidote. At last Germany has mil- 
itary and political, as well as intellectual primacy in 
Europe. Versailles leads her fashions no more. Vol- 
taire is not asked to be her tutor. 

On those very grounds of Sans-Souci, where Freder- 
ick the Great and Voltaire had called out to the cul- 
ture of Europe, " Ecrasez Tinfame ! " King William 
and his queen lately entertained an Evangelical Al- 
liance gathered from the Indus, the Nile, the Dan- 
ube, the Rhine, the Thames, and the Mississippi. 

XYII. BAUE, STRAUSS, AND EEXAN. 

But who does not know the history of the de- 
feat of skeptical school after skeptical school on the 
rationalistic side of the field of exegetical research ? 



262 APPENDIX. 

The naturalistic theory was swallowed by the myth- 
ical theory, and the mythical by the tendency the- 
ory, and the tendency by the legendary theory, and 
each of the four by time. Strauss laughs at Paulus, 
Baur at Strauss, Renan at Baur, the hour-glass at 
all. *' Under his guidance," says Strauss of Paulus, 
" we tumble into the mire ; and assuredly dross, not 
gold, is the issue to which his method of interpreta- 
tion generally leads." ^ " Up to the present day," 
says Baur of Strauss, " the mythical theory has been 
rejected by every man of education." ^ u Insuffi- 
cient," says Renan of Baur, "is what he leaves exist- 
ing of the gospels to account for the faith of the 
apostles." ^ He makes the Pauline and Petrine fac- 
tions account for the religion, and the religion ac- 
count for the Pauline and Petrine factions. " Criti- 
cism has run all to leaves," said Strauss, in his bitter 
disappointment at the failure of his final volume.^ 

Appropriately was there carried on Richter's coffin 
to his grave a manuscript of his last work — a discus- 
sion in proof of the immortality of the soul; appro- 

1 Strauss, New Life of Jesus (Eng. trans.), p. 18. 

2 Baur, Krit. Untersuch. uber die canonischen Evangel., 121, 40-71. 

3 Renan, hude d'Hist. Rel, 168. 

* "Baur acknowledged the four leading epistles of Paul to be gen- 
uine, and to have been Avritten before a. d, 60. Now this admission 
is fatal to the sister theory of Strauss ; for these epistles prove that 
Jesus was not an ordinary man, around whose idolized memory his 
disciples, in the course of a century or so, wreathed mythical fictions, 
not knowing what they did, but that the culminating facts of his life, 
the leading traits of his character as given in our so-called mythical 
gospels, were familiar to the Christian Avorld within twenty-five years 
after his death," — Thayer, Professor J. Henry, Boston Lectures, p. 
372. 1871. 



APPENDIX. 263 

priately miglit there have been carried on Strauss's 
coffin to his grave his last work, restating his mythical 
theory, if only that theory had not, as every scholar 
knows, died and been buried before its author.^ 

XYin. SUIVCVIAKY OF PEOOFS. 

Among the proofs, then, that skepticism in Ger- 
many is declining in power with those whose special 
study is theology, are the facts : — 

1. That in the German universities the rationalis- 
tic lecture-rooms are now empty, and the evangelical 
crowded ; while fifty or eighty years ago the ration- 
alistic were crowded, and the evangelical empty. 

2. That histories of the rise, progress, and decline 
of German rationalism have been appearing for the 

1 Zeller, the admiring biographer of Strauss, says : " As a point of 
weakness in his last volume, The Old and Neiv Faith, he designated 
in one of his letters the beginning of the fourth section on morals. 
'Here,' he writes, 'immediatelj after the appearance of the work, 
a couple of solid beams have still to be inserted, and if you could 
supply me with a few oak or even pine stems, you would deserve my 
sincere thanks.' The public discussions of the work were almost 
without exception disapproving. . . . Average theological liberalism 
pressed forward eagerly to renounce all compromising association Avith 
Strauss after he published this last statement of his mythical theory. 
He was deeply grieved, and it required some days before he could re- 
gain his calm composure." — Zeller, Professor Eduard, of the Heidel- 
berg University, Sti'auss in his Life and Writings (Eng. trans.), pp. 
13.5, 141, 143. London. 1874. "The idea of men writing mythic 
histories between the time of Livy and Tacitus, and St. Paul mistak- 
ing such for realities ! " — Bunsen, Arnold's Life, Letter cxliv. Strauss 
" bezeichnet nicht sowohl eine Epochs als eine Krise, nicht sowohl 
einen Anfangs-als einen Schlusspunkt. . . . Die Einscitigkeit des 
Strauss'schen Geistes, wclche bei allem Glanz seiner Detail Kritik in 
den neuesten Werke besonders auffallend hervortritt, ist ein doppeltes 
Vacat, ein Mangel an geschichtlichem Blick und religiosem Sinn.'* 
— Schwaxz, Geschichte der neuesten Theologie, 3, 557. 



264 APPENDIX. 

last fifteen years in the most learned portions of the 
literature of Germany. 

3. That such teachers as Tholuck, Julius Miiller, 
Dorner, Twesten, Ullmann, Lange, Rothe, and Tisch- 
endorf, most of whom began their professorships with 
great unpopularity in their universities, on account 
of their opposition to rationalistic views, are now par- 
ticularly honored on that very account. 

4. That every prominent German university, ex- 
cept Heidelberg, is now under predominant evangel- 
ical influences, and that Heidelberg is nearly empty 
of theological students. 

5. That the attitude of the general government at 
Berlin has destroyed the force of many of the polit- 
ical causes of disaffection with the state church. 

6. That the victory at Sedan and the achievement 
of German unity diminish the chances of demorali- 
zation from European wars and by contagion from 
France. 

7. That in the field of exegetical research, while 
rationalism has caused the discovery of many new 
facts and the adoption of a new method, the natu- 
ralistic theory by Paulus, the mythical theory by 
Strauss, the tendency theory by Baur, and the leg- 
endary by Renan, have been so antagonistic to each 
other as to be successively outgrown both by Christ- 
ian and by rationalistic scholarship. 

XIX. RESULTS OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM. 

Beyond controversy are many great results of theo- 
logical discussions in Germany for the last hundred 
years. Nor have the attacks of rationalism been an 



APPENDIX. 265 

unmixed evil. A doctrine of the intuitions, basis of 
all ethical and metaphysical research, has been es- 
tablished by Kant. A doctrine of conscience, grow- 
ing up from the Kantian theory of the intuitions, is 
acquiring a height of outlook, from which the far- 
sighted already descry the scientific inference of the 
necessity of an atonement. A doctrine of sin, built 
on the doctrine of conscience, has been made by Julius 
Miiller to unlock all theology. 

A doctrine of the personality of God has been 
founded upon the Kantian analysis of the intuitions, 
and has already supplied the chief deficiencies of 
Kant's own system, besides undermining the panthe- 
ism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. 

A system of criticism has grown up in relation to 
everything historical in Christianity, and exegetical 
research has been placed upon a thoroughly scientific 
basis. 

A vindication of the historical evidence of the su- 
pernatural has followed from an application of the 
new system of criticism. 

A series of discoveries has been made, illuminat- 
ing at important points the records of the origin of 
Christianity, and carrying back the date of the chief 
documents a full half of a century, narrowing by so 
much the previously too narrow space used by the 
skeptical theory to account for the growth of myths 
and legends, and so shutting the colossal shears of 
chronology upon the latest deftly-woven web of his- 
torical doubt. 1 

1 '* Twenty years ago it used to be thought that the earliest proof 
of the reception of New Testament writings as of similar authority 



266 APPENDIX. 

A Life of Christ is now the most natural form in 
which belief, resting upon a system of criticism com- 
mon to sacred and secular history, expresses and de- 
fends its credence. 

XX. CHEISTIAN TREND OF THE CENTUEIES. 

Whoever ascertains the trend of the historic con- 
stellations through long periods obtains a glimpse of 
the hem of the garment of Almighty God. What 
Providence does, it from the first intends. A sifting 
of Christianity has taken place in this last age by a 
prolonged contest of unbelief with faith, each armed 
with the best Damascus blades the world furnishes 
either to-day; and the result has been a defeat of 
doubt on all central points. It is, therefore, now cer- 
tain that it was divinely intended that there should 

to the Old was to be found about the year 180 ; but recent discov- 
eries furnish indubitable evidence that even the gospels had acquired 
such a reception more than half a century earlier. . . . These discov- 
eries, by carrying back for half a century the indubitable traces of 
the gospels, prove such theories as those of Baur, Strauss, and Re- 
nan, to be pure theories, . . , not only unsupported by the facts of 
history, but in opposition to the facts of history. ... As a sect in 
biblical criticism, the Tubingen school has perished. Its history, even, 
has been written, and that in more than one tongue." — Thayer, Pro- 
fessor J. Henry, Criticism Confirmatori) of the Gospels. Boston Lecr 
tures, pp. 363, 364, 371. 1871. " Schenkel, Renan, Keim, Weiz- 
siicker, and others equally removed from the traditional views, unite 
in insisting that the fourth Gospel could not have appeared later than 
a few years after the beginning of the second century. They found 
this opinion on irrefutable grounds. But if this be so, the key-stone 
falls from the arch. The course of development which the Tiibingen 
critics describe, extending for a century from the death of Paul, and 
requiring this time for its accomplishment, is swept away. There is 
no room for it." — Fisher, Professor George P., Essays on the Super- 
natural Origin of Christianity, xxxviii. (new ed.) 1870. 



APPENDIX. 267 

be a sifting of Christianity in tliis last age, and that 
a defeat of doubt should be the result. Prolonged 
historic tendencies are God allowing portions of his 
plan of the government of the world to become hu- 
manly comprehensible. 

When the completion of a cycle of events reveals 
what the plan of the cycle was from the first, it 
behooves men, coordinating latest with earliest cy- 
cles, to ascertain the trend of the movements in the 
sky; and to gaze, more solemnly than upon the stars 
themselves, upon that Form loftier than the stars, 
w^hich passes by in the darkness behind them, its out- 
lines not wholly visible, but the direction not un- 
known- in which it is moving the constellations. 

I commend this German theological battle-field to 
the timid and the hopeful who go out to walk and 
meditate in the world's eventide. Goethe could say 
that the only real, and the deepest theme of the 
world's and of man's history, to which all other sub- 
jects are subordinate, is the conflict between faith 
and unbelief.^ We are the ancients, as Bacon said. 
But the inscription written by history, which is God's 
finger and no accident, before the sad eyes of the 
bruised and staggering ages, on the trophy erected 
after the severest intellectual battle of this oldest 
and newest of the centuries, is. Via Crueis^ Via Lu- 
cis 1 

I do not respect any proposition merely because it 
is ancient, or in the mouths of majorities. But I do 
respect propositions that have seen honest and pro- 
tracted battle, but not defeat. The test of the sound- 
1 Goethe, Werke, Abhandlungen zum westOstlichen Divan. 



268 APPENDIX. 

ness of scholarsliip is that it should contend with 
scholarship, not once or twice, but century after cen- 
tury, and come out crowned. But the intellectual 
supremacy of Christianity in the nineteenth century 
is not a novelty. There are other battle-fields worth 
yisiting by those who walk and meditate, on which 
Christian trophies stand, more important, as marks 
of the world's agonies and advances, than any that 
ever Greek erected for victory at Salamis or Mara- 
thon. I lean on church history. I go to its battle- 
fields and lie down on them. They are places of spir- 
itual rest. Gazing on their horizon, I see no narrow 
prospect, but a breadth of nineteen hundred victo- 
rious years. Looking into the sky, as I lie there, I 
hear sometimes the anthem : As it was in the be- 
ginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. 
I obtain glimpses of a heaven opened ; and behold a 
white horse, and He that sits on him is called the 
Word of God, King of kings, and Lord of lords. He 
is clothed in a vesture dipped in blood ; but his eyes 
are as a flame of fire, and on his head are many 
crowns. 



1 



APPENDIX II 



THEODORE CHRISTLIEB AND GERMAN CHURCH 
LIFE. 

Tholuck, Julius Miiller, and Hermann Lotze 
have passed into the Unseen World, and Germany 
seems lonely and empty without them. Dorner and 
Kahnis, Delitzsch and Lange are now aged men, and 
although their westering suns are yet the chief glory 
of the German theological sky, they each draw near 
to the rim of the horizon. 

Among the comparatively young men who are 
likely yet to be organizing and redemptive forces in 
German theology and church life, no one more thor- 
oughly deserves the intellectual confidence and the 
devout prayers of Evangelical Christendom than 
Theodore Christlieb, of Bonn. He was born March 
7, 1833, at Berkenfeld, Wiirtemberg, studied the- 
ology at Tiibingen, and has been professor at Bonn 
since 1868. Besides being perhaps the most incisive 
and quickening university preacher in Germany, and 
one of the most accomplished Christian apologists of 
modern times, he is an ecclesiastical statesman, with 
a keen sense of both the merits and the defects of 
German, English, and American church systems, 



270 APPENDIX. 

and an evangelical aggressive reformer who lias not 
forgotten how to get on his knees. 

It was my fortune, on the 1st and again on the 
7th of July, 1881, to attend at Bonn, in the Scotch 
Presbyterian Church, what Thomas Chalmers would 
have called a Bible-meeting, and to find there Pro- 
fessor Christlieb, seated in front of the pulpit, with 
the Rev. Dr. Graham, the pastor, and taking large 
and most impressive part in the explanation of the 
Scriptures and in prayer. A sight like this can be 
seen, so far as I am aware, in no other university 
town of Germany. There were present some fifty 
or sixty persons, of whom perhaps twenty-five were 
men, including in their number several German and 
Scottish theological students, but not participating 
personally in the exercises. This weekly meeting, 
of which the exercises are wholly in German, and 
which is held in a Presbyterian Church founded 
here by incredible labor on the part of Dr. Graham, 
represents the best spiritual culture among the mem- 
bers of the Protestant state church in Bonn. The 
size of the assembly from week to week is attrib- 
utable chiefly to Professor Christlieb's regular pres- 
ence in it. Except that laymen were not urged or 
even invited to take part, the service which I at- 
tended resembled a New England prayer-meeting, 
led by a pastor, assisted by some distinguished pro- 
fessor of theology, in a college town. Professor 
Christlieb, sitting in his chair, spoke on each of the 
two occasions for fifteen or twenty minutes on the 
passage of Scripture containing the Seven Epistles to 
the churches of Asia, and then knelt down upon the 



APPENDIX. 271 

bare floor and offered a long, fervent, and most im- 
pressive prayer. 

Incredible as it may seem, Professor Christlieb's 
participation in this devotional meeting finds critics 
among the adherents of an ossified confessionalism 
in the German state churches. Lukewarm and ar- 
rogant Broad Church preachers, who think that the 
baptism of infants and the confirmation of boys and 
girls at the age of fourteen in the establishment are 
nearly or quite saving ordinances, and who make 
little or no distinction between the converted and 
the unconverted in their congregations, are naturally 
much annoyed by the emphasis with which Professor 
Christlieb teaches the doctrine of the necessity of 
the New Birth. Loose and liberalistic theological 
professors look coldly, or with positive aversion, on 
this gathering of a few devout and cultured people 
in Bonn, and deprecate its spiritual earnestness as 
divisive and pharisaicaL Preaching which makes no 
effective distinction between the regenerate and the 
unregenerate Professor Christlieb regards as the 
chief curse of the German state church, and he 
speaks of it with spiritual horror, as flattering souls 
to perdition. 

It is, most unhappily, a very rare thing indeed 
for theological students in Germany to hold prayer- 
meetings among themselves. So much does their 
spiritual culture suffer neglect in the torpid congre- 
gations of the state churches, that these young men, 
when they come to the universities, rarely under- 
stand the wisdom of the proverb ^^ Bene orasse est 
bene studuisse.^' It was Professor Tholuck's (and it 



272 APPENDIX. 

is also Professor Christlieb's) constant coniplaint, 
that, while German theological training is intellect- 
ually more thorough than the Scotch, or American, it 
is spiritually less so. Professor Christlieb evidently 
means to introduce, by personal example, a higher 
wisdom. It is one sign of the ghastly inefficiency of 
the German establishment that his efforts in further- 
ance of indispensable spiritual activity in the church 
are met with misapprehension and opposition. He 
is sometimes accused most unjustly of being more an 
Englishman or an American in his ideas of church 
life than a German. 

It is true that Professor Christlieb was seven years 
pastor of a German congregation in London, and 
that he has made a profound study of the best and 
worst traits of Scotch and American churches. The 
venerable Dr. Andrew Bonar's well-known " Life 
and Labors of McCheyne," a saintly volume, redo- 
lent of tbe richest incense that ever rose from the 
religious altars of Scotland, Professor Christlieb has 
caused to be translated into German. " You cut me 
to pieces," writes an honest reader of this book to 
Professor Christlieb. " In my seventieth year, I 
learn from McCheyne and from Scotland what I 
ought to have done and might have done in my 
German parish." 

Professor Christlieb has also published lately a 
preface to a German translation of the American life 
of President Finney, and has spoken with favor of 
the revival lectures of this theologian and great evan- 
gelist. He has been invited to lecture next year at 
Yale and Oberlin, and would receive an overwhelm- 



APPENDIX. 273 

ing welcome in America, if it should be possible for 
liim to visit these institutions. His work on '' Mod- 
ern Doubt," and his remarkable address on that 
theme at the meeting of the Evangelical Alliance in 
New York, in 1873, Lave given him multitudes of 
readers in America and Great Britain. His accom- 
plished wife is an English lady by birth. Her father, 
the Rev. J. James Weitbrecht, was a German cler- 
gyman in connection with the English Establish- 
ment, and her mother, Mrs. Weitbrecht, also an 
English lady, is a highly valued writer, and noted 
in London for her zeal in various forms of religious 
effort. Professor Christlieb's elaborate volume on 
" The Life and Doctrine of John Scotus Erigena " 
was published in 1860, when he was only twenty- 
seven years of age, and obtained for him the degree 
of doctor of divinity from Berlin University. . This 
treatise compares the system of Erigena with those of 
subsequent writers, and shows great learning ; but it 
exhibits only one aspect of its author's many-sided 
sympathies and culture. His latest work, already 
translated into English, Spanish, Dutch, and Swed- 
ish, gives a comprehensive view of Christian mis- 
sions throughout the world ; and a recent publication 
of his, which he calls a recess study, discusses the 
atrocities of the British opium trade in Burmah and 
China. It is true that Professor Christlieb is perhaps 
better acquainted with England, Scotland, and Amer- 
ica than any other German theological professor, and 
thus excels his contemporaries of his own country in 
his breadth of outlook. It is not true, however, that 
any one of them all is more genuinely German or 

18 



274 APPENDIX. 

more devoutly attached to all tliat is best in the Ger- 
man church than he. His ideas concerning the meth- 
ods by which German church life may be improved 
are precisely those which Scotland, England, and 
America would indorse, and yet he is thoroughly 
German in his whole conception of the scientific side 
of theological training. 

Professor Christlieb does not fear the rivalry of 
any new school of rationalistic thought, arising or 
yet to arise, among the younger theological profes- 
sors of Germany. Evangelical teachers here have 
seen the rise and fall of so many schools of ration- 
alism that alarm is not easily excited in educated 
minds by novelties of method in the attacks made on 
central Christian doctrines. Professor Christlieb's 
father was trained in theology at Tubingen, when 
infidel influences in that University were at their 
height. All the members of his class were gradu- 
ated as confirmed rationalists. They nevertheless 
found employment in the state church. Little by 
little the progress of their studies and their practical 
experience of the work of the ministry brought 
most of them back to evangelical views of Chris- 
tianity, and at last all of them returned to the faith 
which for eighteen hundred years has seen battle, 
but not defeat. As a sect in biblical criticism, the 
Tubingen school has perished. The mythical the- 
ory as to the origin of Christianity is exploded. 
Strauss is no longer heard of here in discussions with 
infidels. His day, and even that of Schenkel and 
Renan, have gone by. The most dangerous tendency 
of the newer form of rationalism connects itself with 



APPENDIX. 275 

the philosophy of evohition and the speculations of 
materialistic physicists. Ernst Haeckel, however, 
has no important following in Germany. The best, 
though not the noisiest naturalists here, as in Scot- 
land and England, are unapologetic and thorough 
theists. On the side of historical criticism Wellhau- 
sen and Kuenen represent decidedly erratic tenden- 
cies, greatly deplored, and yet not regarded by men 
like Delitzsch, Lange, and Dorner as destined to 
exert any prolonged influence. Just at present the 
yiews of Ritschl, in Gottingen, are attracting atten- 
tion ; but he does not command the confidence of 
the leaders of evangelical thought, and some of his 
followers are proclaiming what Professor Christlieb 
calls, with an emphasis of intellectual disdain, " mere 
shallow Unitarianism." 

It is true to-day, as it has been for the last fifteen 
or twenty years, in Germany that the rationalistic 
theological professors attract far fewer students than 
the evangelical. According to the " Universitiits Kal- 
endar" for 1880-81, rationalistic Heidelberg has only 
twenty-four theological students, while evangelical 
Berlin has 230, evangelical Halle, 304, and hyper- 
evangelical Leipzig, 437. At one time, recently, Hei- 
delberg University had seven theological professors, 
all rationalists, and only seven theological students. 
Professor Christlieb assures me that the number of 
theological students in Germany is now decidedly on 
the increase, although it diminished for a while un- 
der the operation of the notorious Falk Law^s, now 
happily superseded in large part by the better ar- 



276 APPENDIX. 

rangements of his successors.^ Falk appointed as 
teachers in the gymnasia very many thoroughgoing 
rationalists, who were accustomed to sneer at any of 
their pupils who proposed to study divinity, and 
thus did their utmost to diminish the number of the- 
ological students in the universities. Until Andover 
and Princeton in America and the Free Church 
theological colleges in Scotland added a fourth year 
to their courses of study, the theological training 
given in Germany was confessedly superior in merely 
intellectual thoroughness to that of any other por- 
tion of the world. The great need of Germany is 
such spiritual awakening as may lead to aggressive 
church life, and transform her university training 
into a Pillar of Fire, through which God can look 
and trouble the hosts of his enemies and take off 
their chariot- wheels. 

Bonn on the Rhine, July 8, 1881. 

1 The highly suggestive work entitled Das Universifdisstudium in 
Deutschland wdhretid der letzten 50 Jahre, by Dr. J. Conrad, profes- 
sor in the law faculty of the Halle Unversity, shows that in the last 
twenty-two years, or from 1860 to 1882, the number of students in at- 
tendance on all the faculties of the German universities has doubled. 
In the last ten years, however, or from 1872 to 1882, the number of 
students in attendance on the Faculty of Evangelical Theology has 
doubled. At the time of the last reports (1884) the number of stu- 
dents in this faculty was : Leipzig, 638 ; Halle, 488 ; Berlin, 459 ; 
Tiibingen,. 366 ; Erlangen, 305; Gottingen, 197; Konigsberg, 158; 
Griefswald, 129; Jena, 127; Breslau, 117; Bonn, 109; Kiel, 72; 
Strasburg, 72 ; Giessen, 68 ; Heidelberg, 54 ; Rostock, 50. About 
fifty years ago, there were 15.6 theological students to every 100,000 
inhabitants of Germany; ten years ago, only 6.7; in 1882, 10.5; in 
1883, over 11. 



APPENDIX III. 



THE NEW HOUSE AND ITS BATTLEMENT; OR, 
THE RELATIONS OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORM 
TO CIVIL LIBERTY AND CHURCH LIFE. 

A LECTURE AT THE METKOPOLITA:Nr TABERNACLE, 

LOl!a)OISr, FOR the ifATIONAL TEJMPERANCE 

LEAGUE, IklAY 1, 1881. 

" When thoa buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battle- 
ment for thy roof, that thou briug not blood upon thine liouse, if any 
man fall from thence." — Deuteronomy xxii. 8, 

"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth. or is offended, or is made weak." — 
Romans xiv. 21. 

" I have led you forty years in the wilderness : your clothes are 
not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy 
foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong 
drink : that ye might know that I am the Lord your God." — Deu- 
teronomy xxix, 5, 6. 

*' The Lord spake unto Aaron, saying. Do not drink wine nor strong 
drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of 
the congregation, lest ye die : it shall be a statute for ever through- 
out your generations : and that ye may put difference between holy 
and unholy, and between unclean and clean." — Leviticus x. 8-10. 

Under a thorouglily free government, the exten- 
sion of the suffrage to ignorant and intemperate pop- 
ulations inevitably places the scoundrel class at the 



278 APPENDIX. 

head of affairs. A drunken people cannot be a free 
people. Are we therefore to infer that free govern- 
ments are so dangerous that we must consider them 
condemned of God's Providence even in these late 
ages of the world ? Britons and Americans are not , 
likely to be of that opinion, for if there is any one 
thing for which we have suffered m^ore than for any 
other outside of our religion itself, it is civil liberty, 
representative government, freedom of political opin- 
ion. I am not now touching at all upon the differ- 
ences between American and British civilization, 
but I am asking you to notice that on both sides 
of the Atlantic we are free ; all of us, Britons and 
Americans, are under the government of representa- 
tive institutions. Evil opinion expressing itself by 
means of the ballot has opportunity to do harm in 
Britain and America, such as it cannot do in any 
other countries of the world less free. By as much 
as political freedom is extended, by so much, drunk- 
enness amongst voters becomes a national mischief, 
sometimes threatening the very life of representative 
institutions themselves. 

This, then, is the new house we are building in 
modern days, — civil liberty under representative in- 
stitutions. What is the proper battlement to be 
placed around the roof? How are we to preserve 
this mansion from blood-guiltiness? How are Amer- 
icans and Britons to solve the problem they have 
been discussing for centuries, — the question how a 
government of opinion under representative institu- 
tions may become safe and worthy of the blessing of 
Almighty God ? 



APPENDIX. 279 

The future of goYernment of the people by the 
people and for the people, is inseparably bound up 
with the cause of the sobriety of the people. I am 
not about to deliver a secular address, but as I speak 
here to-day as an American, and could not deliver a 
British address if I were to try, I must be allowed 
to say that Americans have made up their minds 
that the safety of freedom such as theirs is closely 
connected with the spread of temperance among the 
voting populations. You are sometimes told that 
the cause which I am to defend to-day has advanced 
further in the United States than in these crowded 
islands. Possibly that is the case. But if it has 
grown to a more commanding height there than it 
has yet reached here, I do not think the result is to 
be accounted for by saying that the churches are 
more in earnest there than here, or that American 
society is more saturated with conscientiousness or 
has greater sobriety of mind than yours. I make 
no such arrogant or futile claim. But it is to be 
claimed that Americans would suffer more under 
intemperance among voters, and especially in great 
cities, than you would suffer, because we have ex- 
tended the franchise further than you have done. 
It is not unlimited with us, but it is very extensive, 
and we have built this house of civil liberty so far 
up that we perceive with distinctness the peril of 
falling over the edge of it, and so we feel convinced 
that we must erect a battlement to preserve us from 
blood-guiltiness. That battlement we find in the 
temperance cause. National safety under universal 
suffrage depends on the two great provisions referred 



280 APPENDIX^ 

to in these parallel texts, a nation of abstainers — a 
priesthood of abstainers. 

All this, you say, is good sense concerning Amer- 
ica, with her advanced use of free suffrage. You 
admit that it is beyond dispute that, under the insti- 
tutions which prevail on the other side of the Atlan- 
tic, an intemperate voting class cannot be endured. 
You say you can understand very well why it is that 
popular sentiment is so emphatic in this matter be- 
yond the sea. American church members in the 
Northern States do not easily excuse a young man in 
the pulpit who drinks wine. When a young man is 
passing through a course of theological study, and is 
about to enter the ministry, and is known to carry 
the Bible in one hand and a wine-glass habitually 
used in the other, we are apt to refuse him support. 
We are not equally cautious concerning an old man 
in the pulpit, but there are so many young men. com- 
ing forward with correct habits that we feel that it 
would be flyiug in the face of Providence to take a 
man with incorrect habits and place him before the 
people as a leader. Public sentiment is stern on the 
other side of the Atlantic as to moderate drinking 
amongst ministers. I think I have never heard of 
a minister falling through intemperance. I never 
heard of an American theological professor being 
deposed from his chair for intemperance. I never 
knew any church member who was guilty of open 
or secret habits of intemperance. In the Northern 
States of the American Union we do not count the 
preachers who are total abstainers, but those who 
are not. 



APPENDIX. 281 

You have been told over and over again that the 
lady who was the wife of the late President in 
America turned the wine-glass upside down in the 
White House. In that act she had the support of 
the best portion of public sentiment in the United 
States. You have heard of a general who led the 
armies of the North in the Civil War who had been 
intemperate, but who became a total abstainer, and 
who to-day in all companies turns the wine-glass 
upside down. These are characteristic examples of 
American public sentiment. You have heard of 
license laws carried up into laws of local option ; you 
have heard of prohibitory laws on the other side of 
the Atlantic ; you have heard of constitutional pro- 
hibition there. Why do I mention these things ? 
Simply to show what a deep undercurrent of fear 
and anxiety there is in the new house built beyond 
the sea as to the battlement at the edge of the roof. 
We are convinced that immense political dangers 
must arise in an intemperate voting population. 
Give the ballot to Whitechapel and Seven Dials, and 
ask how you will feel about the cause of temperance. 
Let the slums of London vote as those of New York 
do, — let the government of London come under the 
control of the supporters of the liquor traffic as often 
as that of New York has done, — let this city suffer 
as much in her municipal institutions from the ef- 
fects of intemperance as New York has done, and I 
believe you will have temperance sentiment here 
even stronger than ours. It is because you have 
not extended the suffrage as far as we have done 
that you do not feel the terror which we feel on the 



282 APPENDIX. 

other side of the Atlantic in view of intemperance 
among the masses. 

Although it is clear that America cannot maintain 
her institutions peacefully unless she is very stern 
concerning intemperance, you do not perceive that 
you are in a similar case. I am anxious to make here 
this afternoon an appeal that will go to the hearts 
of men of business. I am anxious to make this topic 
seem of practical urgency to Britons. One of the 
first things an American asks when he goes abroad 
is, How far are the people allowed to protect their 
own interests by representative institutions ? The 
broad fact is that most of the Lower Houses in the 
Parliamentary bodies of Western Europe are elected 
by the people. I will not discuss your Upper Houses, 
and other hereditary bodies. Your Lower Houses 
of legislation are very many of them representative 
institutions, and the question is, whether you- can 
bear to have an intemperate voting class in London, 
in Paris, in Berlin, or any other large cities. I took 
pains to inform myself the other day as to the con- 
dition of the Lower Chambers, and here are some 
facts which show the need of a battlement around the 
wall of the new house which Europe is building. 

Who are they that elect the Lower Chamber in 
France ? The citizens of the age of twenty-one. 
Who are the electors of the Lower House in Aus- 
tria ? Citizens of twenty-one with a small property 
qualification. Who in Prussia? Citizens of twenty- 
five, classed according to taxation. In Germany, in 
the individual States, what determines the composi- 
tion of the Lower Chambers? Universal suffrage. 



APPENDIX. 283 

In Great Britain ? In towns the householders who 
pay poor rates, or in counties tenants who pay a 
rental of X12. In Italy? The citizens of twenty- 
five who pay ^1 12.s. in direct taxes. In Greece? 
Manhood suffrage. In Portugal? Citizens having 
an income of <£22. In the Netherlands ? Citizens 
who pay £1 12s. in direct taxes. In Switzerland ? 
Males of twenty. In Sweden ? Citizens of twenty- 
one with a property qualification of £56. Do you 
need the battlement around your new house ? 

You say I have no right to introduce these topics 
here ? I am preaching from my text, and I tell you 
as Britons, as I would tell Norwegians, or Swedes, 
or Greeks, or Frenchmen, or Swiss, or Germans, that 
the day is coming in the progress of civilization when 
you cannot afford to have an intemperate voting class 
electing your Lower Houses of legislation. Civiliza- 
tion is building a new house, and although I am not 
discussing here and now the structure of your Upper 
Houses at all, — it may be ages and ages before you 
change them, — still you believe in Lower Houses 
grounded essentially on the votes of the people. You 
will come ultimately, I venture to predict, to the 
American sensitiveness in this matter of intemper- 
ance among people who possess political power. You 
will do this as a matter of social and civil prudence. 
You will be forced into it as a question touching 
your purses and throats. The day is coming that 
will move the foundations of many of our present 
political arrangements out of their places. The time 
has arrived when it ought to be proclaimed that the 
minister who is a moderate drinker, the church mem- 



284 APPENDIX. 

ber who is a moderate drinker, the professor of the- 
ology, or any conscientious person who sets a wrong 
example in this matter, is hindering the formation^ 
of sound public sentiment such as is required to 
secure the building of the battlement which is abso- 
lutely necessary to preserve the new house of civili- 
zation from blood-guiltiness. 

There is nothing that prevents the formation of a 
righteous public sentiment on the matter of intem- 
perance so much as the example of the educated and 
the conscientious class. My appeal is to this class, 
and I proclaim. In the name of the blood-guiltiness 
we are likely to incur without this battlement on our 
new home, the necessity of building the battlement. 
It may appear strange to you that on God's holy 
day I preach these truths, and bring a subject of this 
kind before the people. But I think it is high time 
this topic should be taken into the closets of Europe 
as I know it has been taken again and again into 
the places of secret prayer in America. Britons will 
respect my appeal on this point, because if there is 
anything the British race loves it is representative 
institutions. It is in your blood to love them. You 
are likely by and by to be thrown into the position 
of Americans, and find that the friends of repre- 
sentative institutions must either throttle their love 
of strong drink or their love of freedom. That is 
exactly the case on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Send up a balloon from Hyde Park on a clear day, 
and with a strong glass you may see the homes of 
four or five millions of men. Send up a balloon from 
the Central Park in New York city when the atmos- 



APPENDIX. 285 

phere is clear, and the telescope will show you the 
daily haunts of two or three millions of men. Mod- 
ern populations are massing themselves in cities. 
The misgovernment of great towns under repre- 
sentative institutions is a proverb. The faster cities 
grow the more rapidly do they increase the need of 
this battlement around the edge of the roof of our 
new house. But it is a fact that on both sides of 
the sea the cities are growing faster than the rest of 
the population. London increases faster than Eng- 
land, Berlin than Germany, and Paris than France ; 
as well as New York city than the State of New 
York, Boston than the State of Massachusetts, and 
Chicago than the State of Illinois. In the United 
States we had only one twenty-fifth of our popula- 
tion in cities in 1800. Now we have more than one 
fifth. Some of your statesmen look across the At- 
lantic, and say that there is not one American city 
of over 200,000 population that is well governed. I 
repel that accusation. Nevertheless, there is too 
much ground for it. We are troubled by an igno- 
rant and intemperate class, derived largely from im- 
migration from all lands. We have learned that we 
must educate them, and make them sober, and that 
otherwise in great cities our form of government 
will be a farce. In Great Britain you will ultimately 
find trouble in managing your cities, unless you re- 
form the perishing and dangerous population. Let 
Socialism raise a great conflagration on the Conti- 
nent ; let Communism and Nihilism acquire any 
large degrees of political power beyond this little 
thread of water you call the Straits of Dover ; and, 



286 APPENDIX. 

although I believe that the British workingman is 
one of the most sensible of human beings, and one of 
the most loyal, I fear that some spark from the Conti- 
nental conflagration might start an unpleasant flame 
on this side of the Channel in your crowded great 
cities. If a preacher is to be effective in reforming 
the slums, he must go down into them, as Guthrie 
went into the Cowgate in Edinburgh, a total ab- 
stainer. If you do not awaken to the cause of tem- 
perance in its depth and height, you will have polit- 
ical trouble here, and America will be only one step 
in advance of you in walking into the perils of the 
extension of the suffrage to an intemperate popula- 
tion. I am endeavoring to touch a topic not often 
discussed. This relation of the battlement to the 
roof of the new house has never been enough empha- 
sized in the discussion of my theme. Cities are 
growing in size, and with all their growth increase 
the difiiculty and the importance of governing rightly 
the dangerous classes. Such government is impossi- 
ble while moderate drinking is maintained among the 
leaders of the best portion of public thought and 
action, and while the Church is inactive on this 
matter, and while social sentiment rests in a luxuri- 
ous calm amongst the more dignified and educated 
circles. In the name of their most sacred duties to 
society, my appeal is to the conscientious and intel- 
ligent to build a temperance battlement around the 
edge of the new house of civil liberty, lest we have 
blood-guiltiness brought upon the mansion. 

The pillar of fire was a temperance leader. Is 
there any other leader that can guide us safely 



APPENDIX. 287 

througli the perils of popular self-government ? To 
wliat did this pillar of fire lead? To a nation of 
total abstainers ; to a priesthood of total abstainers. 
God's chosen people, when under his special care, 
were trained in the practice of total abstinence. Fur- 
nished by the Divine Hand with all they needed, 
they drank, during forty years, no strong drink nor 
wine. They were settled in Canaan as a nation of 
abstainers, numbering not less than three millions 
(Deut. xxix. 6). Their priesthood was to be made 
up exclusively of total abstaineis. We are con- 
vinced in America that God's model for this ancient 
commonwealth is the only safe model for a mod- 
ern commonwealth under representative institutions. 
Deum sequi^ to follow God, said Seneca, is the height 
of political wisdom. If we are to be followers of the 
most significant voices of Providence in our hazard- 
ous time, we must take upon ourselves the duty of 
building a battlement around the roof of the new 
house civilization is constructing, otherwise it is im- 
possible to avoid blood-guiltiness. 

Is there anything in the Bible to overturn the two 
great principles recognized by the ideal common- 
wealth of old, that the people are to be total abstain- 
ers, and that they should be led by a priesthood 
of total abstainers ? The ministry is substantially 
sound on this theme. I need not appeal to preach- 
ers, for they know both sides of the subject. They 
know that there are two sets of interpreters of cer- 
tain passages as to the miracle at Cana, and the use 
of wine by our Lord. This I claim, that our Lord was 
consistent with himself; that his practice was in har- 



288 APPENDIX. 

mony witli his principles ; and that his morality was 
at least as high as that of the Book of Proverbs. 
Whether you say this or the other thing concerning 
minute matters of textual criticism, you are uttering 
blasphemy if you affirm that Christ, after reading 
the command, " Look not thou upon the wine wben 
it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when 
it movetli itself aright," created wine of that sort and 
gave it to guests who had been already several days 
drinking intoxicating wine. Christ was in all things 
obedient to his Father, and therefore must be sup- 
posed to have yielded glad, affectionate obedience to 
the commands implied in the divine warnings of the 
Scriptures concerning wine. Our Lord was loyal to 
the Old Testament, which was his Bible. My con- 
tention is that there is no proof that Christ put the 
dangerously intoxicating bottle to his neighbor's lips. 
There is fatal inconsistency in any other interpreta- 
tion of the Bible. I maintain, without fear of con- 
tradiction, that there is nothing in the example of 
our Lord to justify our modern social drinking cus- 
toms. 

Remember that distilled liquors were practically 
unknown until the year 1150. The process of dis- 
tillation came into Europe at that date from the 
Moors. If you were to sweejD wholly out of existence 
all distilled liquors, you would bring the world into 
something of the condition in which it stood dur- 
ing the time of our Saviour. The absence of dis- 
tilled liquors would make the more terrible forms of 
drunkenness and alcoholic disease impossible. It 
was against the lighter drunkenness of a world which 



APPENDIX. 289 

had in it no distilled liquors that the fearful biblical 
denunciations of drunkenness were launched. The 
Bible denounces wine as a mocker, and proclaims 
that the weak strong-drink of ancient times at the 
last biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. 
What would it say of the fierce and poisoned pota- 
tions of our days ? Our race has been tempted more 
by intemperance than were the races to which our 
Saviour directly spoke in Palestine. Mr. Gladstone 
has said that the German and English speaking races 
have suffered more from intemperance than from 
war, pestilence, and famine. Frenchmen have not 
suffered as much; Italians have not suffered as much. 
Mahomet made a whole nation total abstainers. The 
weak-kneed Oriental has suffered less from intemper- 
ance than we have. It is true our homes have been 
measurably free from polygamy : when barbarians, 
we were exceptionally pure in our social life ; but 
from of old we have been given to carousal ; from 
of old our weak point has been the love of strong 
drink. 

The question is whether, if our Lord were living 
to-day, with these accursed modern drinking customs, 
with these brandied wines, with these distilled liq- 
uors, with these inherited evil appetites in existence 
around Him, He would find himself correctly or in- 
correctly represented by those who say that his ex- 
ample justifies them in moderate drinking. He drank 
no distilled liquors, for in his day there were none in 
existence. I hold tliat He drank no dangerously in- 
toxicating wines. What He drank was, very prob- 
ably, — perhaps we cannot settle the point beyond 

19 



290 APPENDIX. 

all dispute, — simply that lightest kind of wine which 
the East to this day, in many portions of it, calls by 
the names of superlative praise, that finest kind of 
the fruit of the grape that is practically not intoxi- 
cating. It is not necessary for me to maintain that 
in every case it was strictly non-alcoholic ; but it may 
have been so. I beg you to give yourselves personal 
experience in support of the proposition that unfer- 
mented wine is a fact. Go to your own shops in 
London, and you can have such wine to-day. You 
say that the juice of the grape cannot be kept un- 
fermented any length of time. That is a popular 
error. Your own Dr. Norman Kerr affirms that he 
has kept it in his own house two, three, and four 
days absolutely unfermented. He tells you that he 
drinks unfermented wine brought from the East. I 
know where in London to buy that kind of wiiie. 
What is more, I know from some observation in the 
East, and from much study of the best authorities, 
that many Syrian churches to-day use that kind of 
wine in their religious feasts. In the chief London 
factory of unfermented wine, the practical chemist 
in charge of the establishment explained to me his 
process, and quoted to me Columella's and Pliny's 
receipts for preserving wine unfermented, and as- 
sured me that he coukl not improve these ancient 
directions in point of efficacy; Dr. Kerr has shown 
that wine may be preserved unfermented by eight or 
ten different methods, many of which were known 
to the ancients.^ 

Please notice that I do not make this topic of un- 
i See Unfermented Wine, a Fact, by Normau Kerr, M. D. 



APPENDIX. 291 

fermented wine a necessary part of the temperance 
question. Far be it from me to say that the temper- 
ance cause must have all these details in it, and that 
otherwise it does not deserve our support. I shall 
be thankful if you will support temperance aside 
from abstinence ; but when you misinterpret the 
example of our Lord you hinder the eifect of my 
appeal to the intelligent and conscientious. When 
you tell me that He cbank the fruit of the vine, and 
that therefore you may drink our modern wines, I 
must ask you to notice that your position amounts 
very nearly to exegetical lunacy. It never has been 
proved that our Lord's wine, made at Cana, or the 
wdne He drank himself, was anything nearly as dan- 
gerous as the wines you drink. I will go further 
and say that, in my opinion, which I do not ask 
you to accept, it never has been proved that the 
wine our Lord made at Cana and the wine He drank 
were not like the wine we suppose He used in insti- 
tuting the Lord's Supper — this best kind, this deli- 
cate kind, this unfermented wine, which is used at 
this hour, and can be bought in your own city at 
the present day. There are far more arguments on 
this side of the question than many of you may sup- 
pose who have not read the recent literature on this 
topic.^ 

My position is not that of Dr. Lees. I do not de- 
fend the theory that there are two kinds of wines 
mentioned in Scripture, one alcoholic and the other 

^ See Fairbairn's Imperial Bible Dictionary, Prof. Douglass, art. 
" Wine." Also, Pearson's The Bible and Temperance, aud Canou 
Hopkins, Hohj Scripture and Temperance, London, 1879. 



292 APPENDIX. 

absolutely unfermented and strictly non-alcoholic. I 
make a distinction between strictly non-alcoholic and 
practically non - intoxicating wines. I affirm that 
there is no proof that our Lord looked with desire, 
as you do, upon the wine when red, or that He drank 
wine that was dangerously intoxicating ; and that it 
is blasphemy on your part to call Him a wine-bibber 
in serious earnest, as the Jews did when they slan- 
dered Him. John came neither eating nor drinking, 
and it was said of him, " He hath a devil." Our 
Lord came eating and drinking, and it was said, "Be- 
hold a wine-bibber and a gluttonous man." Now, I 
hold you have no more right to call our Lord a glut- 
tonous man than you have to call Him a wine-bibber, 
and no more right to call Him a wine-bibber than 
you have to call Him a gluttonous man. It is the 
repetition of slander to call Him either of these things. 
We have no more right to infer that John had a 
devil from what was said of him, than to make any 
other audacious departure from common sense. But 
we have as much right to say that as to say that our 
Lord approached the edge of intoxication because He 
was called a wine-bibber. There is high authority 
among scholars of the first rank for the assertion that 
at the Passover the wine used was non-intoxicating, 
and that our Lord instituted the Supper with such, 
wine.i More than 1,500 British churches now em- 
ploy unfermented wine in their administration of the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. In regard to the 
miracle at Can a, and the origin of the Lord's Supper, 
it is certain that the abstainer has as much to stand 

1 Encyc. Brit., 8th ed., art. " Passover," 



APPENDIX. 293 

on in the personal example of our Lord as tbe mod- 
erate drinker. 

Without claiming that the Bible absolutely settles 
the question as to the point I am discussing, I do 
claim that you have not proved, if you are a moder- 
ate drinker, that it settles the question on your side. 
You are far from showing that there is anything in 
the example of our Lord giving the remotest justifi- 
cation to your use of distilled liquors and brandied 
wines. I am grieved with an indignation which I 
dare not express to the full when I hear preachers 
and church members quoting the example of our 
Lord in support of the use of distilled liquors, which 
were not invented until the twelfth century. If our 
Lord were in London or New York to-day, face to 
face with our present drinking customs ; if He were 
here in person as He is in spirit, listening to the 
cries of orphans and widows ; if He could see how 
the best portions of our civilization are imperilled by 
those who fleece the poor and sell to them strong 
drink, I believe, on my soul, that He would again, 
as He did of old, knot up the whip of small cords, 
and purge the Church — shall I say from thieves ? 
Yes, I will apply that term to the whiskey-ring. He 
w^ould purge the Church of moderate drinking, and 
in doing that He would only be giving efficacy to 
the texts : " It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to 
drink wine, nor an^^thing whereby thy brother stum- 
bleth, or is offended, or is made weak;" "Lead us 
not into temptation ; " " Have no fellowship with the 
unfruitful works of darkness ; " " Do not drink wine, 
that ye may put difference between holy and un- 



294 APPENDIX. 

holy ; " "If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will 
eat no meat while the world standeth." He would 
knot up his whip of small cords, and use them in the 
name of those secular principles to which I have ap- 
pealed, — the necessity of temperance as a battle- 
ment to keep blood-guiltiness from the roof of the 
new house civilization is building in giving large and 
sometimes unlimited political power to the people. 

Do you say that I am declaiming now, and leaving 
the ground of hard, stern facts ? Allow me to go 
back for an instant to something modern. How 
many of your life assurance societies will permit 
you, as a moderate drinker, to be insured on the 
same basis as a total abstainer ? This is a practical 
question. Since I came to England I have been 
studying the history of some of your life assurance 
societies, and I hold in my hand literal extracts from 
their own documents, — not temperance publications 
at all ; and the great outcome of the experience of 
these societies recorded in these official statements is 
that the total abstainer is paid from 7 or 10 up to 
17 and 23 per cent, bonus over and above the mod- 
erate drinker. That is an actual result ; that is not 
the fancy of sentimentalism ; that is a broad, indis- 
putable fact which Britons ought to respect as the 
result of experience. Not long ago one of the assur- 
ance societies was addressed on this point, and made, 
through its secretary, the following statements in a 
letter of which the original is in my possession : 
" During the past sixteen years we have issued 9,345 
policies on the lives of non-abstainers, but we are 
careful to exclude any who are not strictly temperate, 



APPENDIX. 295 

and 3,396 on the lives of abstainers ; 524 of the for- 
mer have died, but 91 only of the latter, or less than 
half the proportionate number, which, of course, is 
190." Less than half the number of abstainers have 
died compared with the number that have died 
among non-abstainers who were strictly temperate ; 
and this is an experience of sixteen years.^ 

Are life assurance societies to be allowed to go 
beyond the Church in their regard for the health of 
men in body and soul ? It is to be remembered that 
many whose lives are assured as those of total ab- 
stainers were not always abstinent. The contrasted 
figures will grow yet more striking when the abstain- 
ers are such from birth. These societies are not 
governed according to biblical rules ; they are not 
governed by this or that theory in science. Theirs 
is stern common sense applied to a selfish problem, 
and the outcome of it, under long experience, is like 
a peal of thunder from Sinai. It is high time for 
the pulpit, it is high time for the pew, it is high 
time for young men to arouse themselves when such 
are the signs of the times in secular societies. Here 
is the lowest portion of the sea rising in a tide that 
kisses the Alps. 

The Church of England Temperance Society is 
organized on a double basis. It says it puts no social 
distinction between the abstainer and the merely tem- 
perate man. But what does it do when it organizes 
a rescue section ? I am informed that the Church of 
England Temperance Society, when it calls men to 

1 See extracts in full, with names and addresses of assurance socie- 
ties, in the Temperance Record for April 28. 



296 APPENDIX. 

go into the slums and reach the degraded, acts on 
the principle that we cannot well smite with vigor 
that with which we fraternize. Only total abstainers 
are put into the rescue section of the Church of Eng- 
land Temperance Society. The pledge of total absti- 
nence this conservative society requires for the in- 
temperate ; the pledge of total abstinence it requires 
for the young. The Church of England Temperance 
Society is not a sentimental body. It is not made 
up of men who are usually led astray by fancy. I 
presume you have a general respect for the sobriety 
of mind of the managers of that temperance organ- 
ization. It is true, I should never personally arrange 
a temperance society with a double basis ; I must 
say I do not quite believe in that method of con- 
ducting temperance societies. But this society, con- 
servative enough to be on a double basis, is yet 
shrewd enough to put into its rescue section only 
total abstainers, and to require total abstinence for 
the intemperate and for the young. What I claim 
in the name of my text, and also in the name of 
the perils of this new house and its lofty roof, is 
that all ministers should belong to the rescue sec- 
tion of temperance societies. I claim that every 
teacher in a Sunday-school, every legislator, every 
judge, every father, every mother, every man or 
woman or child who has named the name of Christ, 
should belong to the rescue section of society. Here 
is this sober, conservative body of men proclaiming 
that, without total abstinence in those who go among 
the perishing and degraded, they cannot obtain a 
proper hearing. What do they say except what 



1 



APPENDIX. . 297 

God of old said to Aaron ? " Do not drink any 
strong drink, or even wine, in order that you may 
effectually teach the commands of Almighty God." 

Lord Jeffrey was once visited by Thomas Guthrie, 
and noticed that the latter took no wine. Guthrie 
explained that he could not get a hearing in the Cow- 
gate of Edinburgh if he went as a moderate drinker 
to those who were in their cups. Lord Jeffrey in- 
stantly recognized the nobleness of this plea. He 
saw that Guthrie stood on the principle of philan- 
thropic prudence, expediency, and self-sacrifice : " If 
meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no 
meat while the world standeth." Notice, I am using 
that principle under certain qualifications. I am not 
admitting that alcohol is meat ; but even if it were, 
I should still hold that this divine rule applies to it, 
if it prevented my reaching the poor and degraded. 
Lord Jeffrey treated Guthrie with honor, because he 
saw him standing as a hard-Avorking reformer on the 
only practical and consistent basis of the temperance 
reform. 

Take the wisdom of politics, the wisdom of science, 
the wisdom of the Scriptures, and join them in one 
beam of light, and let it smite through and through 
you while you look into the face of your crucified 
Lord. Of what are we dreaming that we can behold 
his wounds and not be willing to give up our little 
personal indulgences in order to increase our useful- 
ness with the degraded ? Every church has oppor- 
tunity of reaching many families which have been 
afflicted by intemperance ; every church ought to 
draw into it the intemperate. What if the intem- 



298 APPENDIX. 

perate man comes into God's house, and finds the 
pew settmg the example of moderate drinking ? Is 
that safe ? Is that consistency ? It is an unpopular 
doctrine that I am teaching, I know well ; but I have 
taught it in fashionable churches in Boston and New 
York, and I do not know that I was ever criticised 
on the other side of the Atlantic for proclaiming 
unflinchingly the impolicy of setting from the pulpit 
to the reformed drunkard in the pew the example of 
moderate drinking. I must not flinch here from the 
principles I have maintained 3^onder, and I proclaim 
here, as I proclaimed there, that when a reformed 
drunkard sits down in a pew and finds his neighbor- 
ing church member a moderate drinker, or at his 
pastor's table and has wine offered to him there, the 
struggling converted inebriate has not come into a 
place of safety; the Church is not a fold that is secur- 
ing him from the wolves ; it is not a place where he 
can repose. But I believe my Lord's bosom is such 
a place. Although you may blaspheme Him b}^ talk- 
ing of the wine that He made at Cana, and wine that 
He drank, I will go to Him, and I will say, I do not 
believe He ever put the bottle to his neighbor's lips 
in a way that could intoxicate him. I do not believe 
He looked on wine when it was red. I will find 
safety in his bosom, and I will proclaim the neces- 
sity of the reformation of the Church until safet}^ can 
be found within it as his representative. Safety for 
the reformed inebriate and for the young can never 
be attained while we admit moderate drinking into 
the pulpit or into the pew. 

A distinguished divine from New York came lately 



APPENDIX. 299 

to Boston and assailed total abstinence, and lie did 
so in the name of the Bible. He has been most 
effectually answered. His "calm view of temper- 
ance " turned out to be a calm before the storm. 
Since liis reactionary argument was delivered, Mas- 
sachusetts temperance societies have exhibited an 
unwonted activity, and the State has passed a new 
and severe temperance enactment. Six hundred 
ministers recently assembled in Boston in a conven- 
tion intended to inaugurate a movement in favor of 
Constitutional Prohibition. " While carrying the war 
into Africa, this belated reformer," says the chair- 
man of the committee under whose auspices he spoke, 
" stood among his hearers as a solitary sentinel, pac- 
ing round the deserted citadel of his own opinions." 
A brewer of Cincinnati ordered two hundred and 
fifty copies of the lecture. One million copies of it 
are announced as for sale by a brewers' newspaper 
in Chicago. Its author's health was toasted in the 
dram-shops. Mr. Phillips, our most distinguished 
anti-slavery reformer, often reminds the people of 
New England that when slavery was first discussed 
in the United States the Bible was quoted in sup- 
port of it. But we have looked into that matter. 
No doubt slavery is described in the Bible ; no doubt 
one or two forms of it were in various ways hedged 
about, so that, though allowed to live for a while, 
they fell at last. But chattel slavery, that colossal 
curse of my native land, I hold the Bible does not 
justify. Nevertheless, we had the Bible thrown in 
the face of the anti-slavery reform at first. Wait a 
little and we shall by and by have the Bible used to 



300 APPENDIX. 

support the temperance cause, and no longer thrown 
in the face of progress. The theory that the Bible 
speaks with approbation of intoxicating drinks makes 
the Scriptures contradict themselves, and so violates 
the first principle of a sound interpretation of the 
Sacred Word. Mr. Phillips tells us that Mr. Wade, 
of Ohio, who was once an infidel, was asked to be 
president of a society the object of which was to 
show that the Bible supports slavery. "I will do 
so," said he ; " I will be president ; but suppose that 
we prove that the Bible supports slaver}^ people will 
ask, ' What is the good of such a Bible ? ' and in an- 
swering that question I can be of no help at all." 
Suppose that we prove that the Bible justifies mod- 
erate drinking, what is the good of such a Bible ? 
Face to face with the facts of our social condition, of 
our scientific research, and of our church life, what 
is the good of a Bible which increases rather than 
diminishes our temptation ? 

The revered pastor of this church teaches more 
men on the other side of the Atlantic than on this 
side. At least twenty or twenty-five years ago I 
used to hang in rapture over his discourses, as pub- 
lished in America, when he was a youth in London. 
Fifty millions of people on the other side of the 
Atlantic, thirty-five or thirty-eight millions here, — 
his influence yonder I hold to be as great as his influ- 
ence here. Consider what good is done by his exam- 
ple of abstinence. Consider how many are strength- 
ened in an unpopular cause by his stalwartness as he 
stands here and proclaims his reverence for absti- 
nence as a principle, justified by the great law of 



APPENDIX. 301 

self-sacrifice. Whether he would agree with me in 
the interpretation of these texts I do not know, and 
I do not ask. It is not necessary for me to suppose 
that he would. I do not know that he would disa- 
gree ; but this I know, that the principle of self- 
sacrifice, the necessity of avoiding blood-guiltiness, 
the great inculcation of the central text, that it is 
good to do nothing by which our brother stumbleth, 
he recommends to himself and through himself to 
the world. His responsibility he measures by God's 
great law of self-sacrifice, and so would I have every 
minister and every one who teaches God's truth 
measure their responsibilities in religion, in politics, 
and in social life. 

Many abstainers are found among preachers, and 
are yet not chronicled in temperance statistics. But 
the Church of England is known to have already 
3,000 abstaining clergymen. The Baptists in Eng- 
land and Wales have 510 abstaining ministers, and 
the Congregationalists, 824. A great majority of the 
preachers among the Friends are total abstainers. 
The Calvinistic Methodists of Wales, with few ex- 
ceptions, are total abstainers. A large majority of 
the preachers of the United Methodist Free Churches 
abstain wholly. Half the Wesleyan ministers in Eng- 
land and Wales are abstainers. The number of ab- 
staining ministers in the Church of Scotland is 200 ; 
in the Free Church of Scotland, 300 ; in the United 
Presbyterian Church, 220. Lord Bacon said the 
opinions and practices of young men are the best 
materials for prophecy. In these islands, it is very 
significant that abstinence is becoming the rule with 
candidates for the preacher's holy calling. All the 



802 APPENDIX. 

students of the Methodist New Connection are ab- 
stainers. In Cheshnnt, Hackney, Lancashire, New 
and Spring Hill Congregational Theological Colleges, 
there are 192 students, of whom 136 are abstainers. 

There is one perfectly sure remedy for intemper- 
ance, and that is total abstinence. There is no sure 
remedy except that, and what I will not recommend 
to myself I will not recommend to others. I have 
been a total abstainer from birth. I rejoice that I 
was early taught to abhor eyen moderate drinking, 
and that what I suppose to be sound principles, as to 
temperance were inculcated upon me from the very 
outset of my preferences as a child. Let us bring 
up our offspring by our example as well as by our 
precept. Let us set in our households such a blazing 
light before our children that when they come into 
the temptations of great cities they shall be strong 
in advance of their period of trial. Let us put the 
school and the press on the right side. Let us make 
the Church a great pillar of fire, through which God 
can look in the morning watch of better ages to come, 
and trouble the hosts of his enemies, and take off 
their chariot-wheels. 

When we see the Cross of Christ vividly we are 
sure to be melted ; when we are melted we are sure 
so to pity our erring brothers as to be anxious to 
purge the Church of the sins which make even God's 
house other than a place of refuge for the reformed 
inebriate. When we thus purge the Church we shall 
purge the parlor, we shall purge the press, we shall 
purge our statute books, and deliver civilization from 
a curse which has gnawed our vitals more deeply 
than war, or pestilence, or famine. 



APPENDIX IV. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR SMYTH, OF ANDOVER, 
FEBRUARY 12. 

SHALL ORTHODOXY BECO^IE SEMI-UNIVERSALIST ? 

Peofessor Smyth is a gentleman in a most in- 
fluential position, and has the respect of all New 
England for his scholarship and piety. He was my 
teacher, not in dogmatic theology, for that is not his 
specialty, but in ecclesiastical history. He is the 
brother of the Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, of New 
Haven, Connecticut. I do not know that Professor 
Smyth wrote the series of questions I am about to 
answer. The rumor is, that two or three hands were 
employed in their preparation ; but Professor Smyth 
says that he is responsible for them. In a note, over 
his own name, in the Boston " Daily Advertiser " of 
January 24, he calls my attention to a series of 
questions published in that paper January 13, and 
especially to a series published January 20, and 
adds : " For that, with the first, I am responsible." 

My thesis, which is quoted in the communication 
to the Boston " Daily Advertiser " of January 13, is 
proposition fifteen in my prelude of January 8 : 
" Every responsible human being, by the gift of a 



304 APPENDIX. 

free will and a conscience, or by this gift and that of 
the knowledge of the gospel besides, having had a 
fair chance or more than a fair chance, the Divine 
love and mercy are not questionable ; a perfect The- 
odicy is possible ; the ways of God to men are jus- 
tified." Upon this Professor Smyth asks a series of 
questions, which I now read, one by one, from his 
printed copy, and answer : — 

1. '' What part is assigned to Christianity in this 
Theodicy ? 

The same as in the Theodicy of Leibnitz, or Julius 
Miiller, or Jonathan Edwards, or N. W. Taylor, or 
Professor Park, or Professor Fisher. A Theodicy is 
a vindication of the Divine justice in ordaining or 
permitting natural and moral evil. To vindicate the 
Divine love and mercy is more than to vindicate 
merely the Divine justice. Christianity does the 
former, and so, of course, it does the latter. Chris- 
tianity shows that the Divine love and mercy are 
not questionable, for it exhibits a Divine atonement 
which provides opportunity of pardon for all men 
whose repentance is genuine, and this provision is it- 
self such an exhibition of the Divine perfections as 
to be the most powerful motive to repentance. Mak- 
ing the readiness of God to do more than justice re- 
quires thus evident, Christianity makes his readiness 
to do what justice alone requires super-abundantly 
evident. 

2. " Does the phrase ' fair chance ' cover anything 
besides conscience and freedom ? " 

Intelligence, with social and moral appetencies 
and affections, or the moral equipment of a human 



APPENDIX. 805 

soul in a state of sanity, go with freedom and con- 
science, and so, too, in average cases, the light of na- 
ture and experience. '' The Gentiles having not the 
law, do by nature the things contained in the law. 
These, having not the law, are a law unto them- 
selves, their consciences bearing witness." " As 
many as have sinned without law shall also perish 
without law." (Rom. xi.) " For the wrath of God 
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in un- 
righteousness." " Because that which may be known 
of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it 
unto them. The invisible things of Him from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
stood by the things that are made, even his eternal 
power and Godhead, so that they are without ex- 
cuse." (Rom. i.) The Scriptures teach unquali- 
fiedly that all responsible beings, whether they have 
received the written law or heard of the historic 
Christ of revelation or not, have had a fair chance. 
My definition of a fair chance is the biblical one in 
all its details. The fundamental vice of Dorner^s es- 
chatology is that it underrates conscience^ belittles the 
majesty of the human faculties^ and of the moral law 
revealed to all men through nature^ and fails to point 
out ivith any adequate emphasis the awfulness of the 
responsibility ivhich is laid on the soul by that lata 
alone. His definition of a fair chance is, therefore, 
at once unscientific and anti-scriptural, and this is 
the fons et origo of the mischiefs of his teaching in 
eschatology. 

3. " Does it refer to the possibility of avoiding 



306 APPENDIX. 

sin, or to the opportunity of recovery from sin ? To 
the action of a moral agent per se or to the recovery 
of a prodigal son ? " 
To both. 

4. " If to the former, does not this possibility con- 
tinue after death ? " 

The mere possibility does, for freedom continues ; 
but to prove that the soul mat/ repent after death is 
not to prove that it will. May and will, certainty 
and necessity, ability to repent and willingness to re- 
pent, must be distinguished from each other most 
carefully at every point in the discussion of eschatol- 
ogy on grounds of reason. On grounds of Scripture, 
I hold that the exegetical researches of centuries 
have justified the orthodox opinion that probation in 
its strict sense ends at death. 

5. " If the latter, does not this opportunity include 
supernatural agency ? " 

Yes, for it includes provision for deliverance in 
this life from the guilt of past sin. 

6. " Do the words ' more than a fair chance ' refer 
to a legal or a redemptive system ? " 

To a redemptive system, in the sense of one in- 
cluding the influences of the atonement. 

7. "If the latter, is not this system universal as 
respects the human race ? " 

Atonement is universal ; redemption is limited. 
The question seems to confuse atonement, or the 
provision on God's part for man's pardon on certain 
conditions, with redemption, or the acceptance of 
those conditions on man's part. If the question 
means: Has not the atonement made possible the 



APPENDIX. 307 

pardon of the sins of the whole race ? it is to be an- 
swered in the affirmative. 

8. "If it is universal, do not the heathen have 
'more than a fair chance ' ? " 

Yes, in some sense, though not in the full sense. 
Their pardon is provided for on the basis of the 
atonement, provided they really follow and love all 
the light they have. " In every nation he that fear- 
eth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of 
Him," but through an atonement. The heathen live 
unconsciously under a system of grace. 

9. "Is 'a perfect Theodicy,' as respects God's ' love 
and mercy,' possible, except on the basis of a reme- 
dial system ? " 

A perfect Theodicy is possible without an atone- 
ment. It is a first principle of New England theol- 
ogy that the vindication of the justice of God does 
not depend on his providing an atonement. He is 
not obliged either to atone for or to redeem men, in 
order that He may prove himself just. He would be 
just even if He punished all men as they deserve. 
The question is ambiguous, for it is not clear what 
the writer means by a remedial system. If he means 
a redemptive system, including an atonement, the 
answer is in the affirmative. Perhaps the writer 
means to imply that it is impossible to justify God 
in permitting or ordaining moral or natural evil, un- 
less atonement or redemption be general. 

A remedial system of a certain breadth is involved 
in the divine government of the universe according 
to natural law. If only this remedial system existed, 
the divine justice would not be questionable, nor 



308 APPENDIX. 

would the divine love and mercy. The best pagan 
philosophy — as that of Plato, Seneca, Marcus Aure- 
lius, and Epictetus — supports this proposition ; and 
so does the Old Testament theology, as that of Job 
and Psalms. God's superabundant love and mercy 
are fully exhibited, however, only by the remedial 
system revealed by Christianity. 

10. " Is it possible on the basis of a limited atone- 
ment ? " 

Atonement is general ; redemption is particular. 
The atonement is not limited. It is possible, how- 
ever, without any atonement, to vindicate God's love 
and mercy, as the apostle does in Acts xiv. 15-18. 
Redemption is limited solely by man's own choice. 
If this question is not a confused one, it points toward 
Universalism, for it suggests the idea that it is im- 
possible for God to be just without making an atone- 
ment. 

11. "Is it possible on the basis of an equally lim- 
ited operation of the Spirit ? " 

The gift of the Spirit in converting power is an 
act of grace, and not of justice. But the influences 
of the Spirit are given in some measure to all respon- 
sible human agents, and if these influences are fol- 
lowed, a greater measure is given. All who have con- 
science have the general influence of the Spirit ; and 
all who yield utterly and gladly to the guidance of 
the innermost voice of conscience may expect the 
special influences of the Spirit. 

12. " If ' it is the sight of an atonement which is 
the chief force in producing the new birth' {Proj). 
10), and if probation for all ends at death QProp. 



APPENDIX. 309 

14), how are ' God's love and mercy ' vindicated in 
view of the fact that thus far the vast majority of 
the human race have had no such vision in this 
life ? " 

This question is answered by the replies already 
given to questions two, seven, eight, and nine. God 
is under obligation to give all men a fair chance, but 
not to give all or any more than a fair chance. God's 
love and mercy are vindicated by the Scriptures, on 
grounds which apply to all who have merely the 
light of conscience, nature, and experience. 

13. " When it is said '• Whoever permanently re- 
jects . . . the innermost voice of conscience rejects 
. . . the essential Christ QProp, 1), what is the force 
of the word ' permanently ' ? Does it refer to an 
outward fact, a change produced by physical death, 
or to a moral change ? Is the first act of moral 
agency decisive for eternity, if death immediately 
intervenes ? " 

Whoever rejects the truth as revealed by con- 
science and the Holy Spirit, acting through the moral 
sense, and does not repent of his rejection ; this is 
the meaning of the word permanently. It refers to 
a moral change, and its consequences under the sys- 
tems of both law and grace. 

The soul that decides once against God continues 
to be against God until it repents. The Scriptures 
hold out no offer of grace after death. A soul that 
does not repent before death, nor in death, of the one 
evil choice here in question, is losing its day of grace. 
" He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." 
This is both a scientific and a biblical truth. 



310 APPENDIX. 

14. " In such a case, is the permanence arbitrary 
or rational ? " 

Rational, of course, for there is nothing arbitrary 
in the divine, natural, or supernatural dealings with 
the soul. There is a probation before death and 
there is a probation at death, and it is rational to ex- 
pect that he who passes both these without repent- 
ance will never repent. 

15. "If arbitrary, how is this fact consistent with 
' a perfect Theodicy ' ? " 

Nothing connected with the salvation or perdition 
of the soul is arbitrary. 

16. " If rational, how under the conditions of moral 
agency (which include free personality) is a perma- 
nent moral state produced by physical dearth ? " 

No permanent moral state is produced by death, 
considered merely as a physical change. 

17. "Or is the permanence, in case of a wrong 
choice, due to this choice, plus the withdrawal of su- 
pernatural aid ? " 

The permanence of an evil moral choice rests on 
the choice itself, after death, as well as before. But 
after death the permanence is reinforced by the with- 
draw^al of such supernatural aid and opportunities of 
grace as are given to men during life. The fact of 
such withdrawal is a revealed truth. 

18. "If so, how is the provision of a universal 
atonement harmonized with a use of it limited, so 
far, to but a small fraction of the human race ? " 

The limitation of the use of the atonement is 
wholly due to man's evil choice not to repent. How 
is the provision for science harmonized with the igno- 
rance of men ? 



APPENDIX. 811 

19. " How does a Theodicy whicli is compelled to 
assert such a withdrawal from many millions of hu- 
man beings justify ' divine love and mercy ' and ' the 
ways of God to men ' ? " 

By showing that God gives to all men a fair chance 
or more than a fair chance. He does all He can 
wisely do for every soul without destroying its free 
will, and judges every soul according to its use of its 
opportunities. What God does not do could not be 
wisely done by Him. 

This question is another instance of confusion of 
thought, or else it implies that God's love and mercy 
cannot be justified unless there be a universal re- 
demption, or, at least, a universal atonement. This 
is a ground principle of Universalism. 

20. " If infants are not moral agents (JPro'p. 13), 
on what ground is it ' to be hoped that in death, at 
the sight of God's face, they will acquire entire har- 
mony of the soul with Him ' ? {Proip. 13.) What 
reason is there to think that in articulo mortis they 
become moral agents ? Is the change from ' not 
moral agents ' to ' moral agents ' effected ' in death ' ? 
Or is the development after death ? If so, what be- 
comes of the universal proposition, ' Probation in its 
strict sense ends at death ' ? QProp. 14.) Is more 
than one half of the human race not under this law ? 
That is, may their probation be after death ? " 

The least and perhaps all that can be said of those 
who are not moral agents in this life is, that they 
are in the hands of the Judge of all the earth, who 
will assuredly do right. [Applause.] Infants are 
not moral agents, and therefore have not sinned, and 



312 APPENDIX. 

therefore do not deserve to be punished. As being 
born with latent evil propensities, they need a Re- 
deemer, and they have one ; but in this case there 
is nothing in the divine justice to prevent our hope. 
Because infants have not sinned, in the sense of put- 
ting forth evil personal choices, we are confident that 
they are not placed among the wicked after death. 
It is said of children that of such is the kingdom of 
heaven, and that in heaven their angels do always 
behold the face of the Father. Whether their acqui- 
sition of entire harmony of soul with God is effected 
in death or after death, their destiny at death is not 
to be presumed to be uncertain. Prohation^ in its 
strict sense^ implies uncprtainty of result. There may 
he progress and preparation of the souls of ivfants 
after deaths hut not probation in the strict sense, 
[Loud applause.] 

21. "Does not Mr, Cook look at the whole subject 
now under a turban, uow under a hat ; now on the 
basis of principles of moral agency legally rather 
than religiously understood, now on the basis of a 
redemptive system ; with an unconscious transition, 
back and forth, ad libitum ? Is such a method 
' hugely ' scientific ; or, rather, is it not ? " 

This is another instance of confused ideas. What 
is meant by the phrase " legally rather than relig- 
iously " ? God's laws are all religious. Now on legal 
principles, now on the redemptive system ? The 
proposition was : " Every man has a fair chance 
legally or more than a fair chance graciously^ The 
distinction between the two systems is steadily kept 
in view throughout the discussion. 



APPENDIX. 313 

These twenty-one questions contain notliing for- 
midable [Applause] ; but I must now answer seven 
more, which are published in the " Advertiser " of 
January 20th. 

1. "Does Mr. Cook understand Paul (2 Cor. v. 
10) to include under 'things done in the body ' things 
done after the breath ' leaves the body ' ? " 

In the experiences of the soul at death occur some 
of the most important things done in the body. Paul, 
in the passage referred to, includes them. " Be thou 
faithful unto death " is a frequent exhortation of the 
New Testament Scriptures. 

2. " Mr. Cook refers to Paul's being ' caught up to 
the seventh [a slip of the pen] heaven ' (the apostle 
was content to call it the third), and adds : ' The 
soul, before it is separated from the body, may very 
probably hear unspeakable things.' Does Mr. Cook 
think the case analogous? If so, how is he able 
to transcend the wisdom of the apostle, who said, 
' Whether in the body or apart from the body I know 
not. God knoweth ' ? Did Mr. Cook get this knowl- 
edge, too, ' in being thrown twenty feet down a rocky 
bank in a sleeping-coach on a swift railway train ' ? " 

Paul's soul, in the experience here narrated, was 
able to return to his body, and it is to be presumed, 
therefore, that it was not wholly disconnected with 
the body at the time of the experience ; but, if a 
nearly total release from the body brought this expe- 
rience, then a partial release may bring an experi- 
ence partially like it. The marvellous quickening of 
memory and conscience, in many cases, in those who 
are near death or expect instant death, is a fact of 



314 APPENDIX. 

science, and will not he spoken of lightly hy any one 
who has ever observed it, either in another or in him- 
self. 

3. " Mr. Cook cites Matthew xxv. 43 as confirma- 
tory of liis position that men are to be judged for 
their conduct here, and also of his use of 2 Corin- 
thians V. 10. Does he suppose that the soul, after 
breath leaves the body, is able, in the body, to visit 
prisoners, feed the hungry, clothe the naked," etc. ? 

In moral principle, yes ; but it must be understood 
here that the qualifications I have repeatedly insisted 
on in connection with the case described are all kept 
in view. 

4. " Or, does he suppose that the apostle, in his 
allusion to things done in the body, may include 
things done in the ' spiritual body ' ? If so, how does 
the text support the proposition that probation ends 
with death ? " 

The text is rightly interpreted as referring to 
deeds done in our present ph3^sical bodies, for death 
is to be defined as the separation of the soul from the 
physical body. 

6. '' Mr. Cook deems it ' in the highest degree 
probable that souls are divinely illuminated by death, 
and thus are brought to final permanence of charac- 
ter.' He also afiirms that ' it is the light of atone- 
ment which is the chief force in producing the new 
birth.' How far is this in principle from Dr. Dor- 
ner's position, that final permanence is reached 
through a decision in view of atoning love ? " 

Dorner's system of thought supposes that a soul 
reaches a permanent moral state only by a view of 



APPENDIX. 315 

atoning love as seen in an actual presentation of the 
historic Christ, and by accepting or rejecting this 
presentation. The seven objections which I have 
made to this system have been published. [See the 
New York " Independent," January 18th.] It is one 
thing to assert that conversion among those to whom 
the gospel is preached is produced chiefly by a view 
of the atonement, and another to assert that in the 
case of all human souls, in this life or the next, it 
is produced only by it. 

6. " Mr. Cook characterizes Dorner's eschatology 
as ' bewildering,' ' narrow,' ' reversionary,' and ^ haz- 
ardous to the souls of men.' Will he explain why 
it is so much safer to teach a probation after breath 
than a probation after death ? [A full reply to this 
point had been given in Mr. Cook's remarks before 
his lecture.] Is an opinion founded on indications 
of Scripture and on the finality and absoluteness of 
Christianity, that men who have not rejected God's 
character and love as revealed in Christ here will 
have opportunity to come to a final decision, in view 
of his claims before coming to his bar, likely to pro- 
duce more painful results than the well-nigh baseless 
speculation that impenitent men generally may have 
an opportunity in death and make a final choice, 
under supernatural light and an ' unutterable series 
of voices from the seventh heaven ' ? " 

The difference is between the limitation of oppor- 
tunity to life and death, and its extension to the un- 
counted ages of an intermediate state between death 
and the general judgment. 

7. ''Is this extension of probation by Mr. Cook 



316 APPENDIX. 

anytliing less than a confession that the old theory 
with which he starts is moribund and akeady out of 
breath ? Why does he introduce into the discussion 
a speculation unsupported by a single text of Scrip- 
ture and peculiarly liable to perversion? It is be- 
cause he would hold on to a transient, perishing for- 
mula, indigenous to theology and not to Scripture, 
and yet would not and cannot resist the pressure of 
principles which transcend it. To Mr. Cook, as well 
as to Dr. Dorner, it seems congruous with Christian- 
ity and with reason that probation be defined in the 
sphere of character. An arbitrary limit is unlikely, 
and requires for its acceptance the clearest proof. 
Mr. Cook realizes this, and so would put into death 
all the powers of the world to come, all the regener- 
ating forces of the gospel. The attempt is a flag of 
distress." 

I have not extended the period of probation beyond 
death, and so ha.ve not exceeded the limit of the 
Scripture as interpreted by orthodoxy. I have ex- 
hibited simply the solemnity of death in many aver- 
age cases, and the results which must be expected to 
follow under natural law from resisting the voices of 
conscience when it is aroused by the king of terrors. 

As to these questions in general, it is to be noticed 
that : — 

1. They frequently confuse together atonement 
and redemption. 

2. They confuse distributive justice with other 
Divine attributes. 

3. They belittle conscience, present no proper idea 
of justice, or of the dignity of the moral law revealed 



APPENDIX. 317 

in nature, and of man's responsibility as a free agent 
under it. 

4. Tliey insinuate principles which lead to Univer- 
salis m. 

5. They are open to the seven objections made, in 
the Monday lecture of January 8, to Dorner's escha- 
tology. 

6. They seem to be all the result of an inconse- 
quent method of reasoning or of obscure and blurred 
ideas. 

7. If they are not the result of simple indefinite- 
ness in thinking, then they are an indication of real 
heterodoxy. 

Having ansvrered twenty-eight questions for which 
Professor Smyth is responsible, I now venture to put 
to him four. [Loud applause.] Andover is not the 
object of my criticism. I am endeavoring to protect 
it. I have made diligent inquiries, and, so far as I 
can ascertain, Professor Sm^^th is the only teacher 
now in the Theological Seminary at Andover Avho 
would be willing to make himself responsible for the 
assertions and implications connected with these 
questions. He has made himself responsible for 
them. I do not know another professor at Andover 
who would do as much. My questions are solely to 
my questioner. 

1. How far may a man indorse Dorner's eschatol- 
ogy and yet intelligently and honestly subscribe the 
Andover Seminary Creed in its original and historic 
sense ? [Prolonged applause.] 

2. How far may a man indorse Dorner's eschatol- 
ogy and yet intelligently and honestly subscribe the 



318 APPENDIX. 

Andover Seminary Creed for substance of doctrine ? 
[Applause.] 

3. How does Professor Smyth reconcile his respon- 
sibility for his signature to the Andover Seminary 
Creed with his responsibility for the assertion, in 
connection with these questions, that the orthodox 
doctrine of the limitation of probation to this life is 
a " moribund," " perishing, and transient formula " ? 
[Applause.] 

4. What alterations in the standard New School 
teaching of New England Theology as to Probation, 
Inspiration, and the Atonement would meet with 
Professor Smyth's approval ? [Loud applause.] 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR SMYTH, FEBRUARY 19. 

It is no part of my purpose, this morning, to reply 
in full to Professor Smyth's three columns of fine 
type in the Boston " Daily Advertiser " of Saturday, 
February ITth ; but there are six errors as to mat- 
ters of fact which vitiate his whole discussion, and I 
point them out at once, to show that the communica- 
tion is very vulnerable. 

1. Professor Smyth is entirely mistaken in suppos- 
ing that by '' redemption," and " a redemptive sj^s- 
tem including the Atonement," I mean the same 
thing. His reply to seven points of my criticism, as 
well as the whole force of his somewhat surprising 
citation from Samuel Weller, turns wholly on this 
palpable mistake, and so is really no reply at all. 



APPENDIX. 319 

The act of redemption is different from the redemp- 
tive system, because the latter inckides the Atone- 
ment. My positions as to the distinction between 
atonement and redemption are those which have 
been familiar to New England theology, and in con- 
stant use at Andover for a generation. Professor 
Smyth should have noticed that in a passage he does 
not cite I speak of the limitation of redemption as 
" due to,'' that is, as occurring on account of, "man's 
evil choice not to repent " (Answer to question 18), 
and that this language interprets the passage which 
he does cite. The latter can be set in opposition to 
the standard definitions of New School New England 
theology only by an incorrect statement of its mean- 
ing. 

2. Three of the four questions put to Professor 
Smyth, and in the answers to which the public gen- 
erally and the religious press in particular have ex- 
pressed a keen interest, he entirely evades. 

3. He does not show that he has not characterized 
the theory or formula which limits probation to this 
life, as "moribund, perishing, and transient," nor 
how this language is to be reconciled with his public 
position as a professor in Andover Theological Semi- 
nary. 

After being elaborately questioned by Professor 
Smyth, and after replying to his questions, I have a 
right, as a graduate of Andover Seminary, to put to 
him a question as to this blazing point of discussion. 
I have a right simply as an American citizen to put 
this question on the large matter of creed subscrip- 
tion. This is a very old and prominent topic in 



320 APPEKDTX. 

England, and may yet become sucli here. It is one 
in which the public is greatly interested, and on 
which the views of a gentleman of Professor Smyth's 
high culture and standing would, no doubt, be of 
value to us all. 

4. Professor Smyth is mistaken in supposing that 
I have put into the word probation the meaning I 
wish to draw oat of it — namely, that it implies un- 
certainty of result. That meaning was in the word 
by established usage as long ago as the days of 
Cicero and Csesar. Definitions are not made, but 
grow. 

5. Professor Smyth is mistaken in asserting, with- 
out qualification, that I am a Calvinist. New Eng- 
land New School theology is not Calvinism, but mod- 
ified Calvinism, a consistent Calvinism, and is better 
called simply New School New England theology, 
the name by which it is known at home and abroad. 

6. Professor Smyth is mistaken in supposing that 
by " the essential Christ " I mean only conscience in 
its attitude of command, without regard to con- 
science in its attitude of benediction to the soul that 
obeys its command. I mean by the essential Christ, 
as iny language shows, " God immanent in the moral 
nature of every man," or, in scriptural words, " the 
Logos," or " the Light that lighteth every man that 
Cometh into the world " and that " in the beginning 
was with God and was God." 

My chief purpose in referring thus early to Pro- 
fessor Smyth's rejoinder to my answer to his twenty- 
eight inquiries is to prepare the way for a fuller 
answer by asking Professor Smyth himself a few 



APPENDIX. 321 

more natural and necessary questions. One of my 
reasons for putting these inquiries to Professor 
Smyth he himself expresses admirably. " Mr. Cook," 
says Professor Smyth, '' has been out of the country. 
He does not know what has been going on. [Laugh- 
ter.] A little more information and intelligence in 
these matters would enable him to use his powers to 
much greater advantage." For the purpose of mak- 
ing this discussion more thorough, and especially 
more spiritually profitable, I put twelve new inqui- 
ries, and, in view of my own frankness in answering 
twenty -eight and more of Professor Smyth's ques- 
tions, the public will expect him to reply to this 
much fewer number. 

1. What are Professor Smyth's definitions of a 
theodicy ; a perfect theodicy ; atonement ; redemp- 
tion ; a remedial system ; the Divine justice ; a fair 
chance ; more than a fair chance ; a decisive proba- 
tion ; a merely possible truth, against which no 
dogma can be laid down ? 

2. In the sentence, " Every soul that sees Christ 
as its final judge will before have seen Him as its 
atoning sacrifice," what is meant by " seeing Christ 
as an atoning sacrifice " in the case of those who 
have no knowledge during life as to the historic 
Christ ? 

3. What is meant by it in the case of those who 
have heard of the historic Christ only in a fragmen- 
tary, false, or otherwise seriously imperfect way ? 

4. If the principle adopted by Professor Smyth in 
the sentence quoted is applied seriously, does it not 
include the cases not only of " infants, idiots, luna- 



322 APPENDIX. 

tics, and some heatlien," but of all who haye not 
heard at all, or, although hearing, have not ade- 
quately heard, of the "historic Christ " ? 

5. Does Professor Smyth indorse the following po- 
sition of Dorner ? " The absoluteness of Christianity 
demands that no one he judged before Christianity has 
been made accessible and brought home to him. But 
that is not the case in this life with millions of hu- 
man beings. Nay, even within the Church there are 
periods and circles where the gospel does not really 
approach men as that which it really is.^^ ^ 

In the citations I am to make from Dorner I beg 
leave to call the attention of this audience most care- 
fully to his language, which I quote from the Rev. Dr. 
Newman Smyth's edition of a fragment of Dorner's 
work, although I should advise all who wish for a 
complete view of this theme to read T. & T. Clark's 
edition of Dorner's whole theology, or, better yet, 
the original German. 

6. How does Professor Smyth show that it is not 
spiritually hazardous in an appalling degree to give, 
as Dorner does in the passage cited, such a definition 
of a fair chance that not only all who have never heard 
of the historic Christ, but millions who have, will 
think they have not had a fair chance, and then to 
promise to all these, on easy and liberal terms, a con- 
tinued probation after death ? 

7. How does Professor Smyth reconcile either 
Dorner's position or his own with the position of St. 
Paul in Romans i. and ii., that all who have con- 

1 Doruer on The Future State, ed. by the Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, 
p. 101. 



APPENDIX. 323 

science, free will, and the light of nature and experi- 
ence, are without excuse ? 

8. What does Professor Smyth think of the fol- 
lowing position of Dorner : " The sin which leads to 
damnation can never be the sin resulting from in- 
nate sinfulness alone or at all from the influence of 
the race, the common spirit, example, or temptation 
by error. Rather the sin rendering the individual 
absolutely had can only he the personal guilt of reject- 
ing Christ.'''' ^ 

9. According to Professor Smyth, is the rejection 
of the atoning love of God, as seen in the historic 
Christ, as presented to human souls here or in the 
intermediate state, the only ground of final condem- 
nation? Is such rejection the only act that fixes 
character? If probation lasts, as Professor Smyth 
teaches, until such rejection of the historic Christ 
takes place, and if only what fixes character ends 
probation, does he not teach that it is this rejection 
and this only which fixes character ? Does not this 
imply that among those who have not heard of the 
historic Christ in this life, not one in this life has 
fixed his character or could fix it, no matter how evil 
his deeds or how thoroughly confirmed his habits of 
vice ? Is not such a position most atrociously friv- 
olous, as well as mischievous, since it is palpably 
contrary to what is accurately known of human 
character from modern ethical science and all great 
literature and philosophy of every creed and school, 
as well as in most direct contradiction to the Holy 
Scriptures. 

1 See Dorner on The Future State, edited by the Rev. Dr. Newman 
Bmyth, p. 125. 



324 APPENDIX. 

10. What is Professor Sraytli's reply in detail to 
ttie twelve passages of Scripture cited in the Prelude 
to the 152d Boston Monday Lecture, as showing, di- 
rectly or indirectly, that probation in its strict sense 
does not extend to the intermediate state ? In par- 
ticular, what is Professor Smyth's reply, on the basis 
of exegesis or literary good sense, and not on that of 
a citation of authorities, to the position that Peter 
is to be explained as consistent with himself, and 2 
Peter ii. explains the references in 1 Peter to preach- 
ing to spirits in prison ? 

11. How does Professor Smyth justify the Divine 
character as a whole, including love and mercy, as 
well as justice, in permitting an unequal distribution 
among men of the goods of this life — such as health, 
education, intellectual and moral endowments at 
birth — and external incitements to virtue, as well 
as in what appears to be an unequal operation of the 
Holy Spirit upon the individuals of the race in this 
life? 

12. How does Professor Smyth justify the Divine 
character as a whole in creating beings who, as the 
divine omniscience previous to their creation fore- 
sees, will be forever lost ? 

In Professor Smyth's article I am told that there 
is no attempt to force Dorner on the public ; but 
here is a translation (holding up the Rev. Dr. New- 
man Smyth's edition of Dorner on " The Future 
Life " ) of all that Dorner says on eschatology 
pushed before the public by a gentleman who does 
not indorse him in every particular, as I very well 
know ; but who, nevertheless, is regarded by the in- 



APPENDIX. 325 

telligent part of the public as in some sense a cham- 
pion of Dorner's view on many points. You will 
allow me to be perfectly frank here. I know that I 
have been out of this country, but whom have I at- 
tacked since returning ? Dorner, and no American. 
Dorner, I have studied for years. I have listened to 
him often in Berlin. I have seen the disastrous ef- 
fects of his teaching in eschatology on much of the 
preaching in German state churches. Returning to 
America, I did not take part in a debate that w^as 
new to me. When have I named any American 
here belonging to what I call the siren school of 
semi - Universalism ? Not till men of that school 
came forward, and in print attacked this platform, 
was there the name of a man of that school whis- 
pered here. I do not pretend to know what the 
siren school of semi - Universalism inside American 
Congregational orthodoxy thinks. This movement 
has no newspaper of its own as yet. [Laughter.] 
There is no accredited organ of this faction ; for I 
will not dignify it by the name of party. There 
is a Plymouth pulpit faction, inside of orthodoxy, 
or outside, which shall I say ? [Laughter.] " Out- 
side," gentlemen behind me say. Marcus Aurelius 
wrote : " Abhor all that needs walls and curtains." 
If I am to follow this precept, and if I am to keep 
in view these columns of questions to me by Pro- 
fessor Smyth, and this volume issued by the Rev. 
Dr. Smyth, and the months of discussion which 
have raged about this name, I must say that there is 
also a Smyth faction. [Laughter.] It has no con- 
nection whatever with the first, except in repudlat- 



326 APPENDIX. 

ing the view that probation is limited to this life. 
Professor Smyth is a vigorous and most honorable 
opponent of the first faction. Until attacked, I did 
not once name that other faction nor the Smyth fac- 
tion, for I do not pretend to know accurately what 
they think. I am anxious to ascertain. It is pos- 
sible, if I can sufficiently draw the fire of these fac- 
tions, that by and by my ignorance will be ade- 
quately enlightened. One of my objects is to draw 
the fire of the enemy, and I am succeeding, if yon 
please. [Laughter and applause.] 

Summarizing the central question of a current 
debate under this phraseology, " Park or Dorner, 
which ? " I am told by Professor Smyth that this 
language is unfit to be addressed to cultured persons, 
because it savors of an appeal to local prejudices. If 
Dorner had taught at Andover what he has taught 
at Berlin, and if Professor Park had taught at Ber- 
lin what he has taught at Andover, I should be 
to-day a German in my theology and a vehement 
opponent of the New England School. [Applause.] 
It is only on account of the clearness, massiveness, 
comprehensiveness, acuteness, and conclusiveness of 
the best portions of the tliought of the New School 
New England theology that I reverence it. I am not 
a New Englander by birth. It is true I have lived 
here more than anywhere else in the world, and 
passed the more important of my school-days here; 
but my theological sympathies are not limited by 
geographical lines. I repel, as utterly unworthy of 
any generous or cultivated person, the suspicion that 
I am ruled by provincial prejudices and local attach- 



APPENDIX. 327 

ments. Clear ideas at any cost carried out to the 
thirty-two points of the compass, tliese, with spiritual 
purposes, are what I revere and what I do not find in 
Dorner's eschatology, but do find in Professor Park 
and his great predecessors among those who have de- 
veloped New England theology. It will be under- 
stood, of course, that I do not lack reverence for 
orthodox evangelical theology outside of New Eng- 
land. The principles I am defending are common 
to the standards of all the evangelical bodies. 

If I have said anything that seems personally dis- 
courteous to any one, I cancel it. My object is to 
cultivate here entire freedom of discussion, without 
discourtesy. I have been out of the country, and 
have not participated in the discussions which have 
aroused in many circles a bitterness of feeling which 
amazes and pains me. Let it be far from us in this 
assembl3^ I would unite with Professor Smyth in 
prayer to Almighty God that we may be led into the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 



REPLY TO PROFESSOR SMYTH, MARCH 12. 

Truth, honor, liberty, and peace are the essen- 
tials of healthy life in Congregationalism, as in any 
other religious body. There must be peace in the 
Church ; but, to use Lord Beaconsfield's phrase, it 
must be peace with honor, with liberty, and with 
truth. There must be libert}^, but liberty with peace, 
honor, and truth. There must be honor, but honor 



328 APPENDIX. 

with tnith, liberty, and peace. There must oe truth, 
and this includes within itself peace, liberty, and 
honor. 

Can Dornerism in eschatology he introduced into 
the theological chairs and pulpits of the Evangelical 
churches^ and especially of the Congregational hody^ 
in consistency with truth, honor ^ liberty^ and peace f 

On this question, which is the central one in all 
I have said or published in the current debate on 
probation, I maintain the negative. This is my chief 
contention now, and has been from the first ; so that, 
establishing this point, my case is carried in precisely 
the form in which it was stated at the outset of the 
discussion. 

So far was I from intending to attack Professor 
Smyth, of Andover, when I raised here, on January 
8th, the question, " New England Orthodox Theol- 
ogy ; or, German State Church Theology, which ? 
Park or Dorner, which ? " that I did not have him 
in mind as one who would be likely to be offended 
by my criticisms of Dorner. I did not know Profes- 
sor Smyth's views. I supposed him to be loyal to 
the Andover Seminary creed, to which he had re- 
peatedly given his signature. I had not the slightest 
intention of making public reference to him or any 
of his friends ; and when his twenty-eight questions 
appeared, I did not even dream that he was their 
author. Besides, falling into most palpable error in 
regard to the six matters of fact which I mentioned 
here on February 19th, Professor Smyth is entirely 
mistaken in asserting that I " attacked vehemently, 
and undertook to announce, as by authority, what 



APPENDIX. 829 

was agreed upon as to the beliefs of a professor in 
Andover Seminary." ^ I profess solemnly that I 
attacked, and intended to attack, no American, and, 
least of all, any professor at Andover, a town of great 
and honorable fame, which is very naturally dear to 
me, after nearly seven years' residence there as a 
student. 

I took Dorner for the object of my attack for three 
reasons : — 

(1.) He is an object large enough to be seen on 
both sides of the Atlantic, so that a discussion of his 
views has a certain timeliness and dignity abroad as 
well as at home. 

(2.) His views had recently been placed before 
the world in authoritative and final shape in his four 
volumes of theology, so that there could be no debate 
as to what his opinions are. There was no authori- 
tative statement before the public, and there is not 
yet, as to the views of those who are more or less 
Dorner's followers in this country. 

(3.) By undermining the authority of Dorner's es- 
chatology, I was sure to undermine the authority of 
what had been built upon it ; and I could not but 
see, as a student of current events, that in America 
as well as in Germany, and in the Broad Church, so 
called, in the Anglican establishment, not a little 
had been built on it. My object was to strike a 
blow as useful as possible not only at home, but in 
any circles to which the printed words of this discus- 
sion might ultimately be wafted in newspaper form, 
or in books republished abroad. 

1 See his communication in the Daily Advertiser of February 17, 
first column. 



330 APPENDIX. 

1. Practical mischiefs of Dornerism and of Pro- 
fessor SmytJis working hypothesis in eschatology : — 

What is Dornerism in eschatology? Some few 
unprofessional hearers may ask: "What is escha- 
tology ? " This word is compounded very simply of 
Greek eschatos, last, and logos^ a discourse, and means 
the doctrine of the last things ; that is, of death, the 
last judgment, and the end of the world. It includes 
in most theological systems a discussion of the res- 
urrection, the intermediate state of departed souls, 
Christ's second advent, the eternal woe of the lost, 
and the eternal blessedness of the sa.ved. It is a 
topic so unspeakably vast and solemn that no mistake 
concerning it can he so small as not to he colossal. It 
can be fitly discussed only in the clearest light of 
strictly self-evident truths and of revelation, and in 
the spirit of devoutest prayer. 

If I were speaking only before scholars in the- 
ology, I might say that Lutheranism, in spite of its 
many merits in other particulars, has had a reputa- 
tion for two centuries for browbeating and twisting 
Scriptures so as to make the external standard of 
authority conform to the inner standard of Christian 
consciousness. Luther himself, with all his massive 
greatness as preacher, scholar, prophet, and reformer, 
was sometimes guilty of this. It is well known that 
he denied the canonicity of the Epistle of James, not 
at all because he thought it spurious as an historical 
document, but because its contents did not suit his 
Christian consciousness. His boldness in this matter 
has not been copied by Calvinistic, Scottish, Angli- 
can, Wesleyan, or American theologians. It has, 



APPENDIX. 331 

however, been imitated almost as an inspired prece- 
dent by many Lutheran theologians, and specially 
by Dorner. Although he covers his audacity by a 
cloud of reverential phrases, he is really almost as 
eccentric in this matter as was Luther. Here is a 
scholarly article in a recent number of the " British 
and Foreign Evangelical Review," ^ and it affirms, 
unqualifiedly, what scholars here know has been said 
hundreds of times before by the most unprejudiced 
and learned critics, that " it became the habit of the 
Lutheran Church from its cradle to make the Word 
of God bend and bow to prop up those dogmas which 
were once for all regarded as essentials of revela- 
tion." American students of Dorner are likely to be 
very seriously misled as they examine his " History 
of Protestant Christiauity " and his '' System of Chris- 
tian Doctrine," unless they keep constantly in view 
this background of notorious facts in the develop- 
ment of the Lutheranism which Dorner champions. 

To uproot error we must uproot its lowermost 
roots, and so I ask you to go back with me to the 
beginning of Dorner's chief errors, an undue exalta- 
tion of the Christian consciousness above ScriiJture as 
a source of certainty in regard to religious truth. 

Dorner's tests of truth in theology are Scripture 
and faith. To these he constantly appeals as the 
formal and material principles of the Lutheran Ref- 
ormation, and of Protestantism. They are the organ- 
izing ideas of Lutheran theology, of which Professor 
Dorner is the foremost living representative. Dor- 
ner's system of theological thought has really no 
1 October, 1882, p. 680. 



332 APPENDIX. 

centre. It is not a circle, but an ellipse, and its two 
foci are Scripture and Faith. As in the formation 
of an ellipse, one focus has as much guiding power as 
the other, so, in the construction of his system of 
doctrine, one of these authorities is as good as the 
other. The revelation made in the Bible as a whole, 
and by the incarnation of God in Christ, is one focus 
of the ellipse; and the other is Faith — a word on 
which everything depends, but which Dorner is far 
from using in a clear, distinct, and unvarying mean- 
ing. It usually signifies what I must call regenerate 
individualism ; or, what he calls the Christian con- 
sciousness. To become authoritative, a doctrine, ac- 
cording to Dorner, must be justified by both these 
tests. This is only carrying out Luther's famous say- 
ing, quoted with approval by Dorner : ^ " The vital 
point is that we equalize the Scriptures and the 
Christian conscience." 

It is, of course, clear that there is a great dis- 
tinction between conscience and consciousness, as the 
words are used in philosophy in our day of exact 
research ; but it is by no means clear that Luther 
always made a distinction between the two, nor that 
Dorner does, although Luther usually seems to mean 
the former, and Dorner the latter. Dorner has been 
greatly influenced by Schleiermacher and Hegel ; 
and his use of philosophical terms cannot always be 
understood without a tolerably wide knowledge of 
the systems of thought of his own teachers. 

At the last analysis, however, as has been so often 
charged against other Lutheran theologians, Dorner 

1 History of Protestant Theology, vol. i. p. 256, by T. & T. Clark. 



APPENDIX. 333 

depends in some cases more on Faith than on Scrip- 
ture, as a test of religious truth. When Scripture 
on the one hand and regenerate individualism on the 
other seem to conflict, he does, in many most impor- 
tant cases, make the latter of considerably more im- 
portance than the former. For example, he says : 
" That some are lost rests on preponderant exegetical 
grounds, but that gives no dogmatic proposition, be- 
cause this must be derived also from the principle of 
Faith." No amount of explanation can bring this 
and the scores of similar passages to be found in 
Dorner's works into harmony with what standard 
evangelical theology has for centuries regarded as 
sound principles. 1 

Precisely here is the point at which, according to 
my judgment, Dorner opens a door for a flood of 
mystical, obscure, erratic, and often mischievous 
speculations. As one of his admiring students in 
America has said, with singular failure to perceive 
that this praise is the greatest dispraise : " Any one 
who has once grasped the controlling principle of 
Dorner s theology . . . will need no explanation of 
Dorner's dogmatic hesitancy^ when he finds himself 
unable to reconcile facts of history or texts of Scrip- 
ture with that which Faith has already learned to 
deem Christ-like and most worthy of God. It is not 
enough for a Christian doctrine that it be apparently 
contained in the Scripture ; it needs, also, to be 
recognized as Christian by Faith." ^ 

1 See Dorner on The Future State, ed. by the Rev. Dr. Newman 
Smyth, p. 127. 

2 The Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth's Introduction to Dorner on The 
Future State, p. 12. 



334 APPENDIX. 

The obvious peril of this principle is, that its ten- 
dency is to make the ultimate test of dogmatic cer- 
tainty not what the Scriptures declare to be worthy 
of God, but what the Christian consciousness thinks 
to be worthy of God. We are not to follow Scrip- 
ture, even when its preponderating testimony is clear 
to us, provided our Christian consciousness is op- 
posed to Scripture. We are not to believe what we 
are taught by revelation as to God, but what we 
think we ought to be taught. We are not to hold 
facts of history and texts of Scripture subject to that 
interpretation which a scientific treatment of the 
records of revelation requires ; we are to put upon 
them an interpretation which we deem Christ-like 
and most worthy of God. 

(1.) My central objection to Dorner's general sys- 
tem of thought is, that his ultimate test of certainty, 
in many cases of the highest importance, is nothing 
more than individualistic whim. It may be regener- 
ate individualism to which he appeals; it may be 
the Christian consciousness of the best portions of 
the Church, age after age ; it may be what he calls 
Faith, regarded as, equally with Scripture, a work of 
the Holy Spirit ; but in a close examination it will 
be found that it is on what man thinks God ought to 
teach, and not on w^hat revelation shows that God 
does teach, that Dorner founds his theology. 

(2.) I contend that in the fallen estate of human 
nature there is nothing in a man except the intui- 
tions, strictly so-called, or the faculties by which we 
perceive truths, absolutely self-evident, necessary 
and universal, that can be safely used as a final test 
of truth. 



APPENDIX. 335 

(3.) Regenerate individualism, used as such a test, 
and not kept in constant and complete subordination 
to tlie written word, and to "strictly self - evident 
truths, is an ignis fatuus in the domain of theology, 
and has been proved to be such by the history of re- 
ligious speculation, age after age, and recognized as 
such in all the noblest periods of religious thought 
and activity. 

As scholars here well know, Dorner's principle of 
making regenerate consciousness a final test of truth 
was held by Schleiermacher. The latter, on account 
of his teaching this principle, and in spite of the 
value of many other parts of his work, is justly re- 
garded by the soundest theologians in Scotland, Eng- 
land, and America as one of the unsafe leaders of 
Christian science. His system, however brilliant 
in parts, has waned in authority in Germany itself 
from its tendency to mysticism, obscurity, arbitrari- 
ness, and individualistic error. The debate on these 
points is a very old and thorough one in Germany. 
The attempt to force Schleiermacher's principles in 
Dorner's name upon circles well-informed in recent 
church history, or in love with a reverent biblical 
theology and clear ideas, is reactionary in a degree 
as audacious as it is unscholarly and mischievous. 

Some German theologians, following the principle 
that we are not to believe of God what is revealed in 
Scripture and Nature so much as what we think to 
be Christ-like and most worthy of God, have be- 
come champions of Universalism. To create beings 
when it is foreseen they are to be lost forever is 
not Christian, so these guides say, and, therefore, it 



336 



APPENDIX. 



must not be supposed that any being can so sin as 
to be lost. Dorner has been interpreted as doubting 
whether Omniscience in creating souls foresees the 
free acts which may lead to their moral ruin. Pro- 
fessor Smyth thinks that the continuance of the lost 
in being is a difficulty in the vindication of God's 
justice. It is very significant that liberalistic mys- 
ticism, for this is the true name of the system of 
Dorner and Schleiermacher, on the points here in 
discussion, agrees with liberalistic rationalism in de- 
manding a religion more Christian than Christianity, 
and more Christ-like than Christ. 

It is an amazement to me that the Rev. Dr. New- 
man Smyth, in his Introduction to an edition of 
Dorner's eschatology, should say of a chapter of 
Dorner's, in which he sets forth the principles I have 
now stated, and which needs no condemnation other 
than their statement that "Ae knows of no passage in 
modern theological literature so thoroughly satisfac- 
tory and helpful'^ ^ Without indorsing Dorner at all 
points, the Rev. Dr. NcAvman Smyth very unguard- 
edly says : " / am ready to maintain that the princi- 
ples upon which Dorner proceeds are clearly Chris- 
tian.''^ Professor Smyth, as I understand him, while 
not accepting Dorner ism " in the lump," does accept 
these central principles of his system. As a teacher 
of ecclesiastical history, he must know that Schleier- 
macher and Dorner, great as they are in other re- 
spects, have a reputation for weak and mischievous 
teaching on these very points. As to the danger of 
these utterly unscientific principles, the dispraise of 
1 Introduction, p. 6. 



APPENDIX. 337 

them and of Schleiermacher and Dorner as defend- 
ing them, is to be heard in nearly every high quarter 
of Christian thought and aggressive evangelical ef- 
fort. 

The Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, indeed, while in- 
troducing Dorner 's eschatology to Americans, is 
frank enough to say : " It is but justice to Dorner to 
state that this portion of his work hardly equals in 
strength and positiveness of results some earlier por- 
tion of his system." 1 The truth is, that Dorner's 
eschatology, dispassionately judged by internal evi- 
dence, is a crude and hasty portion of a great system, 
too large for any one man to work out thoroughly. 
It is a dead twig on a tree that has many noble 
branches ; it is a wen on the face of Dorner's large 
work. The attempt to cut off that dead twig and 
ingraft it into the tree of American religious 
thought, the effort to remove that wen from its 
place and plant it in the fair face of New England 
theology, is a procedure which only needs to be ex- 
posed to be defeated. 

Dorner holds that the only sin which can cause 
the ruin of the soul is the rejection of the historic 
Christ, as made known in the clearest manner in his 
atoning love to the human soul, either in this life or 
in the intermediate state. 

The chief reasons for holding this is not that it is 
anywhere distinctly stated in Scripture, but that it 
is necessary to the exigencies of Dorner's system to 
hold it. He does not think it would be Christian in 
God to do less than this scheme of thought supposes 

1 lutroduction, p. 21. 
22 



338 APPENDIX. 

Him to do. The divine justice, as well as the divine 
mercy, requires that no soul should be condemned 
until in fullest light it has rejected the historic 
Christ. 

Dorner asserts, as of course he must, in harmony 
with this scheme of thought, that no sin before 
Christ can be decisive unbelief. " It does not, hov/- 
ever, follow," he adds, " that sin before Christ was 
not in the proper sense sin; was not laden with 
guilt and punishable . , . but from this ripeness for 
eternal perdition cannot proceed." ^ 

The fascination of this scheme of thought to many 
minds which do not look beneath its surface is that 
it is put forward in the name of what we must sup- 
pose to be Christ-like in God, and in that of broad 
and high ideas of the divine justice. All that is 
included in Dorner's or Professor Smyth's broadest 
definitions of the Christ-like, and of the divine jus- 
tice, is included in the standard and scholarly systems 
of theology in definitions of the various divine at- 
tributes, and, of course, without the moral dangers 
and intellectual absurdities inseparable from Dor- 
ner's definition. 

Dorner holds, and so must Professor Smyth, in 
consistency with his hypothesis, that " free moral 
personality can be fully developed out of the generic 
state or race connection, and can be finally self-de- 
termined in good or evil only through the actual 
choice or rejection of the supreme ethical good," 
that is, of the atoning love of the historic Christ, as 
seen here or in the hitermediate state. " Until free 
1 Introduction, p. 20. 



APPENDIX. - 339 

self-determination is reached in view of the final 
good ; until, in the approach of that supreme good, 
the definitive crisis comes to the individual, human 
character may indeed be sinful and worthy of pun- 
ishment, but it cannot have reached its final form 
and permanence." This astounding doctrine as to 
the development of a free moral personality, and this 
equally amazing assertion that no one before Christ, 
or without hearing of Christ, can fix his character 
permanently in evil, no matter how terrible or con- 
firmed his wickedness may be, are obviously con- 
trary, not only to the best established principles of 
ethical, psychological, and even legal science, but to 
the plainest inculcations of the Scriptures and com- 
mon sense. 

The supreme practical mischief of Dornerism is 
the outcome of the positions of which the philosoph- 
ical and exegetical untenability has now been ex- 
posed. Dorner promises a continued probation be- 
yond death, and so indirectly does Professor Smyth's 
working hypothesis, not only to all who have in this 
life never heard of the historic Christ, but " to all 
who have heard of him only in a false, fragmentary, 
or otherwise seriously imperfect way." This in- 
cludes the larger part of Christendom itseK.^ Such 
a promise as this I do most solemnly and unquali- 
fiedly pronounce atrociously frivolous, as well as 
mischievous. No such promise as this, but exactly 
its opposite, is contained in the gospels. It marks 

1 See Professor Smyth's affirmative reply to my fourth question of 
February 19th, and most especially pp. 11-21 of the Rev. Dr. Smyth's 
Introduction. 



340 APPENDIX. 

this portion of Dornerism not only as belonging to 
tlie siren school of a false liberalism, but as nearly 
equiyalent in practical effect to Universalism, and 
as really one of the hungriest whirlpools of fascinat- 
ing and fatal heresy. 

2. Answers to Professor SmytJis questions : — 

(1.) Is conscience the Redeemer? Is conscience 
God? No; as the magnetic needle is not mag- 
netism ; but it reveals God, as the needle reveals the 
courses of the magnetic currents. 

(2.) Does redemption mean the use of the atone- 
ment ? Redemption, in its active sense, is God's 
act, not man's ; but, in its passive sense, it includes 
man's free surrender of his soul to God as both Sav- 
iour and Lord. God is ever ready to redeem all who 
yield to Him, and therefore, in its practical sense, 
redemption is limited, on account of man's refusal 
to repent. 

(3.) "What proof is there that Dorner's influ- 
ence has paralyzed the preaching of German state 
churches ? My assertion was not that Dorner alone, 
as an individual, has made a large part of the preach- 
ing of the German state churches spiritually bar- 
ren ; but that the system of eschatological teaching 
which he represents has had that result. I have not 
affirmed that Dorner originated this mischief ; his 
influence helps to keep it up. It ought to be well 
known to every professor of ecclesiastical history 
that Protestantism in Germany, so far as it is rep- 
resented by its average churches and preaching, is 
often spoken of by its friends as a failure.^ 

1 See British and Foreign Evangelical Review for 1882. 



APPENDIX. 341 

Professor Smyth quotes a letter of Tholuck, writ- 
ten to liim in 1876, as affirming that there has been 
a great improvement in the spiritual condition of 
Germany since the opening of the century. I gladly 
admit this, especially as to the theological faculties 
of the leading universities, in which, as I have re- 
peatedly pointed out in public, there has been a great 
reaction against unbelief. The improvement is not 
so marked in the pulpits and congregations. But to 
show that darkness has diminished is not to show 
that day has come. This same Professor Tholuck, 
whom Professor Smyth cites to prove that the Ger- 
man state churches are in a fairly good spiritual 
condition, once said that if they were separated from 
the state not a score of them, in his opinion, would 
be capable of self-support. In 1871 and 1873, more 
than twice or thrice I heard this same revered Ger- 
man teacher lament with tears the spiritual ineffi- 
ciency of the German churches, and I heard Christ- 
lieb do this often in 1881. They by no means 
ascribed the barrenness of the German churches 
chiefly to their connection with the state. German 
oh arches fail to insist with adequate emphasis on the 
new birth, and on present immediate urgencies in 
religion, such as Corner's creed does not, and thor- 
oughly evangelical creeds do, point out. " Con- 
verted and unconverted with us," said Professor 
Tholuck, " are mixed pell-mell together ; we are all 
members of the Church after confirmation, whether 
Christian or not ; we have never learned what Jona- 
than Edwards and Whitefield taught New England, 
to make a public distinction in our churches between 



342 APPENDIX. 

the regenerate and unregenerate. That distinction 
is of more importance to American religious life than 
all your other peculiarities of church management." 
I have seen the empty state churches of Berlin, and 
of many another German city ; in Halle, in 1871, I 
looked in vain for a prayer-meeting or a Sunday- 
school. Many of the state preachers go on from such 
an eschatology as Dorner's into pure Restorationism. 
I suppose Professor Smyth will not deny that Uni- 
versalism paralyzes preaching. At this moment the 
German state churches are missionary ground for the 
Baptists, and the Methodists, and the Moravians. 

(4.) What are the essentials for ordination? Ought 
men who do not accept the teaching of New England 
theology and the standards of Presbyterian, Metho- 
dist, Baptist, Episcopalian, and Anglican churches, 
in regard to eschatology, to be refused ministerial 
standing in the Congregational body ? 

I have no ecclesiastical position or influence, and 
desire none. My personal vote in the cases men- 
tioned by Professor Smyth would be governed by 
the principles defended by Professor Phelps in an 
article in " The Independent " of May 18th, and by 
Professor Park, in an already celebrated address in 
Boston, published in " The Congregationalist " of No- 
vember 8th. These Andover professors need no 
justification for their opinion on the points here in 
question but their record. 

3. Professor SmytK's obscure and confused propo- 
sitions : — 

(1.) Professor Smyth gives this definition of one 
of the most fundamental terms in religious science. 



APPENDIX. 843 

It will be remembered that the merits of a definition 
are clearness, unambiguousness, and easy justifiable- 
ness by established usage. It should contain no 
metaphorical language, nor any as to the meaning of 
which a debate is pi^ssible. " Divine justice," says 
Professor Smyth, adopting the words of another, " is 
the self-preserving honor of God, as the absolute, 
ideal, and actualizing law and guard of all bestowal 
of worth." What is bestowal of worth ? What is 
the difference between an absolute, an ideal, and an 
actualizing law ? What is a guard of a bestowal of 
worth ? When I read this definition it reminded me 
of the famous agnostic definition of matter given by 
Professor Bain : " Matter is a double-faced some- 
what, physical on one side and spiritual on the 
other." What is a side of matter ? What is a face? 
What is a side of a double face ? What is a what ? 
What is a somewhat? What is a side of a double 
face of a somewhat ? Herbert Spencer's definition 
of life came to my mind : " Life is a definite com- 
bination of heterogeneous changes, both simultane- 
ous and successive, in correspondence with external 
coexistences and sequences." All these definitions 
violate the first principles of clear and definite think- 
ing, and seem to have been constructed to support 
foregone conclusions. 

(2.) Professor Smyth says that we may not be 
able to construct a perfect Theodicy ; that is, he ad- 
mits that we may not be able to construct a perfect 
vindication of God in view of the natural and moral 
evil in the universe. This is agnostic pessimism in 
philosophy, and is contrary to the whole resonance 



344 APPENDIX. 

of the Holy Scriptures from their first notes to the 
last. 

(3.) Professor Smyth says that if any proposition 
is " a possible truth, no man has a right to lay down 
a dogma which excludes it." '^ It is, at least, possi- 
ble," he aflfirms, " that Peter believed that the gos- 
pel was preached to dead persons," that is, to souls 
in the intermediate state, " that they might live ac- 
cording to God in the spirit." Therefore, no man 
has a right to lay down the dogma that probation 
ends with this life. Here is a most grave miscon- 
ception of the Avhole nature of moral reasoning. It 
is, at least, possible that to-morrow the sun will not 
rise, nor the earth be habitable by man ; but I have 
a right to believe that it will rise, and to take it for 
granted that we shall have our usual tasks to per- 
form to-morrow. It is possible that Queen Victoria 
is not living at this moment, therefore her official 
representatives in various parts of the world have no 
right to speak in her. name. On all such reasoning 
as this, men of affairs, as well as scholars, look with 
amazement. It is, at least, possible that Peter did 
not teach that the gospel was preached to spirits in 
the intermediate state, and, therefore, no man has a 
right to lay diovm a dogma assuming that he did 
teach this — so we might affirm on Professor Smyth's 
principles. The truth that moral reasoning consists 
of a balance of probabilities, and that the small 
straw of one parenthetical passage of obscure and 
most doubtful interpretation cannot be used to check 
the flow of the central current of biblical teaching, 
and, especially, of our Lord's own constant calcula- 



APPENDIX. 845 

tions in eschatology, seems to have escaped entirely 
from Professor Smyth's attention. 

Grant the canonical authority of II. Peter, and 
Professor Smyth does not attempt to deny it, and 
in any court of law Peter's controverted phrases in 
his First Epistle would be interpreted by his second. 
It is a supreme rule of exegetical science, that one 
passage of the Bible is not allowed to resist its main 
drift, and that the plain is not to be explained by 
the obscure. 

4. His hazardous or heretical propositions : — 

These are all contained in what he adopts from 
Dornerism. He holds as the best w^orking hypothe- 
sis that not merely infants, idiots, lunatics, and some 
heathen, but all men who have not heard of the his- 
toric Christ in this life, or who have only heard of 
Him in a false, fragmentary, or otherwise seriously 
imperfect manner, w^ill have a continued probation 
hi the intermediate state. He teaches that the or- 
thodox view, which for ages in evangelical standard 
creeds has limited probation to this life, is " extra- 
Scriptural," and a "provincialism" and "a mori- 
bund, perishing, and transient formula." 

Professor Smyth's propositions imply that the 
heathen have not a fair chance without a knowledge 
of the atonement. He teaches that all Avho see 
Christ as Judge will previously, either here or here- 
after, have a " knowledge " of Him as Redeemer. 
But Paul teaches that those who have not the law, 
that is, no knowledge of the historic Christ, shall 
be judged without that law " in the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." 



846 APPENDIX. 

The Holy Scripture so magnifies conscience, and the 
light that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world, that it teaches that the heathen themselves 
are without excuse. Professor Smyth so underrates 
conscience, and the moral law revealed to all men 
through Nature and experience, that he does not 
regard the heathen, who are outside of Christendom 
or within it, and have no knowledge of the historic 
Christ, as without excuse. The heathen at home 
are often as bad as the heathen abroad. So great is 
conscience, so unescapable and fair is man's proba- 
tion under the moral law alone, that the apostle 
teaches that some who have sinned without a knowl- 
edge of the written law shall be condemned without 
that law. So does Professor Smyth overlook con- 
science, and the ineffable majesty of tlie Divine 
Word which it reveals to every responsible human 
being, that he teaches, in contradiction not only to 
Scripture, but to all sound axioms of ethical science, 
that no man can be condemned at the Judgment 
Day for any sin which he committed without a knowl- 
edge of Christ as Redeemer. 

5. His evasions : — 

It will be noticed that I have answered all Pro- 
fessor Smyth's inquiries. Seven definite questions 
of mine, fairly suggested by his thirty-one questions, 
to which I have replied, he rules out and refuses to 
answer. There is no reply to them in the document 
to which he refers as written by himself and his 
colleagues. The inquiries he rejects are precisely 
those on which I was the most anxious to obtain his 
opinions, and on which, to all appearance, he could 



APPENDIX. 847 

not speak frankly, without serious logical embarrass- 
ment. 

6. His self-contradictions : — 

Professor Smyth is in a chair of a theological in- 
stitution established to maintain precisely the oppo- 
site opinions to those represented by his working 
hypothesis in eschatology. His hypothesis, although 
only an hypothesis, prevents his teaching the doc- 
trines of the Andover Seminary creed on these vital 
points. It is a rule of the Andover Seminary that 
every professor shall signify his solemn assent to the 
Seminary creed every five years. Nothing that Pro- 
fessor Smyth or any one else has published explains 
this self-contradiction in a matter of the gravest 
practical moment. 

7. Four final questions : — 

As a means of directing attention, not to personal 
issues of this discussion, but to the large matter of 
creed subscription in its widest and most serious re- 
lations to the health and honor of the churches, I 
put four final questions. As Professor Smyth fails 
to ansAver nearly half of my inquiries, I put these to 
the friends of Andover, and especially to its gradu- 
ates, of whom it is my fortune to be one, and also 
to the friends of evangelical Christianity at large. 
The opinion of the honored trustees and visitors of 
Andover on these points the public would receive 
with the most careful consideration : — 

(1.) How do they show that a working hypothesis, 
such as Professor Smyth holds, does not prevent his 
teaching the propositions of the Andover Seminary 
creed in relation to eschatology ? 



348 APPENDIX. 

(2.) How do they convince themselves that he 
who holds this working hypothesis, and calls the or- 
thodox view as to the limitation of probation to tins 
life a moribund, perishing, and transient theory, is 
both intelligent and honest in his acceptance of that 
creed ? 

(3.) How do they show that in allowing such 
views to be taught at Andover as are the opposite of 
those which the Andover creed was intended to sub- 
serve, there is not something like a breach of trust 
and a perversion of funds ? 

(4.) What would probably be the opinion of the 
Supreme Court of Massachusetts on this matter as a 
question of law and common equity ? 



APPENDIX Y. 



A NIGHT ON THE ACROPOLIS ; OR, ART AND HIS- 
TORY AT ATHENS. 

A LECTTJUE DELIVERED E^ BOSTON, NEW YORK, 
ANDOVER, Am) EN" VARIOUS COLLEGE TOWNS. 

I. 

On the night when Plato became the pupil of Soc- 
rates, the latter, according to Pausanias, dreamed 
that a white swan, rising from the altar of Eros, flew 
into his bosom, and thence ascended to heaven with 
a song which delighted both gods and men. 

Demosthenes, in reply to his enemies, once boasted 
that there were days when Athens had but one 
voice within her walls ; and the stranger, entering 
the gates and startled by the silence, was told that 
Demosthenes was speaking in the assembly of the 
people. 

Were Plato, Socrates, and Demosthenes the only 
forms visible from the Acropolis, that eminence 
would be the loftiest outlook on the globe over hu- 
man intellectual history. At the west summit of 
the Parthenon there is a point from which are visi- 
ble, by once turning the head, the groves of Plato's 



350 APPENDIX. 

Academy, the daily haunts of Socrates, the Pnyx of 
Demosthenes, the grounds of the Lyceum of Aristotle, 
the Mars Hill of Paul, the Propylea of Phidias and 
Pericles, the Erechtheum, the Tower of the Winds, 
the Panathenaic Stadium, the Olympieum, the the- 
atre of JEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Tem- 
ple of Theseus, the pass of Daphne, the sacred road 
to Eleusis, the heights of Acro-Corinthus, Cytherus, 
Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus, the plains of the 
Cephissus and the Ilissus, the harbors of Phalerum 
and the Pirseus, the islands JEgina, Psyttalea, and 
Salamis, the mountain slope once the seat of Xerxes, 
the Phyle pass of Thrasybulus, the path to the Mar- 
athon of Miltiades, the Salamis straits of Aristides 
and Themistocles. I confess that I rarely occupied 
this outlook long without falling into a trance. 

II. 

One day, having spent hours on the Acropolis, I 
sat in the Parthenon, after sunset, looking on the 
jagged ridges of the gnarled, scorched islands, the 
purple seas, the gray, dusky olive groves, the faint 
blue, lilac Corinthian and Argolian mountains, and 
on the russet not yet wholly faded from the crystal- 
line, palpitating silver of the Greek West. Even 
the brown slope of the semicircle of the Pnyx, on 
which the audiences of Demosthenes and Pericles as- 
sembled, took irradiation from the glowing sky, which 
transfigured by the softness of its reflected light the 
roseate white stateliness of the marbles of the Acrop- 
olis. The heights of Parnes, the matchlessly graceful 
outlines of Pentelicus, the ridges of thirsty Hymet- 



APPENDIX. 



351 



tus, the grandeur of lofty Cytlierus gazed on tlie 
rustling Ilissus and Cepliissus groves, the city, the 
Parthenon, and the sea. The majestic ruins were 
silent about me. The gates of the summit of the 
Acropolis were shut. I had taken pains to be com- 
pletely alone. My intention was to pass a whole 
night with the Parthenon, walking on the Acropolis 
by moonlight, and beholding there the rising of the 
sun. I am to attempt now not argument, but de- 
scription ; and this not from memory, but almost 
exclusively from notes written in Greece in presence 
of the objects named ; nor is the topic all Greece, but 
Art and History at Athens, or a night on the Acrop- 
olis. Distant soft noises of children at play came 
up from the city ; rumble of wheels, and occasionally 
strains of music. Suddenly in the gathering dark- 
ness and increasing loneliness, I heard the sharp 
shrill cry of a screech-owl, several times repeated 
— Minerva's bird in Minerva's temple. 

I looked long on Salamis through the ruddy light. 
There rose transfigured in memory the day when 
Leonidas and his Spartan heroes lay dead in the 
pass of Thermopylae, and the women and children of 
burnt Athens, this Acropolis itself sending up flame, 
assembled on the island to look down from the one 
side, as Xerxes and his innumerable host did from 
under ]\'lt. ^galeos on the other, upon the narrow 
strait in which the 378 Greek triremes conquered the 
1,000 Asiatic. There the deluge of an inferior but 
haughty civilization, cast thunderous and turbid upon 
Europe, was turned back by a solitary people, who 
seemed to have gone beyond the jaws and to have 
descended into the very throat of ruin. 



352 APPENDIX. 

Before the battles of Marathon and Salamis, Asia 
predominated in the world's affairs. Since those con- 
tests, she has always had a second rank. This steel 
gray narrow sheet of murmurous salt-water has been 
thus visibly touched in human history by that finger 
at whose contact the hills melt and the mountains 
smoke ; and, therefore, even after 2,300 years, the 
waves flash here, between the bleak rocky shores, 
with a light better than that of the sun. Greek civil- 
ization, on that great day when the women on Sala- 
mis, according to the prophecy, boiled their meat 
with broken oars, was in process of preservation for 
you and for me ; and among the corpses which shut 
the moonlight from the depths of this clear water on 
the night after the battle, the plans of Providence 
for the education of Rome, of London, of Paris, and 
of Boston were advancing, 

^schylus fought in the triremes at Salamis. 
Sophocles, a mere boy, danced at the festival held on 
the island in honor of the victory. Euripides was 
born there. Demosthenes, exiled to the island, used 
to walk down to the shore at sunset to look toward 
the Pnyx, the Acropolis, and the Parthenon. From 
the place where he stood, I have counted with a field 
glass the pillars of the Parthenon, eight miles away. 
Except for ^gina, twelve miles to the south of Sala- 
mis, I could have seen the island of Calauria, where 
Demosthenes passed from the world, as Aristotle, on 
Eubcea, out of sight beyond the blue cone of Penteli- 
cus, ceased to breathe. Aristotle and Demosthenes 
died October 14, B. c. 322. It was my experience 
even in Athens that this remarkable date seemed to 
close Greek history. 



APPENDIX. 353 

As I looked from my seat in the Parthenon toward 
Salamis, a light, the first of the evening, flashed out 
on the left of the small, conical, rocky hill yet called 
Xerxes' seat. It shone from the light-house on the 
little gray island of Psyttalea, where Aristides, in the 
battle of Salamis, exhibited in a land contest a brav- 
ery and an intellectual skill not unlike that shown by 
Themistocles on the sea. 

Over the five miles of the line of the ancient, long 
walls, connecting Athens with the Piraeus, roared 
and flashed martially a railway train, passing to and 
fro every hour through the fenceless and hedgeless 
vineyards, the scattered olives, and wild flowers, red, 
beautiful, and abundant enough to have been nour- 
ished each by a drop of the old Greek blood shed so 
often on this Athenian plain. The small, graceful, 
swift fishing boats with white triangular sails ; the 
numerous fleet, and compact, animated streets of the 
Pirseus ; this imperial movement of the trains across 
ground so imperial m history, give life to the else sol- 
itary straits. 

The island of Salamis, a mile from the Attic shore, 
is only ten miles long by two or three broad. It is 
as a whole a treeless pasture, although there are 
thinly clustered olives and figs on its three or four 
flat quarters and a few stunted Aleppo pines in the 
thirsty ravines of its fifteen or twenty mountain 
spikes and bosses. Toothed Salamis I call it, as I 
look on its sharp limestone ridges from Athens. Mur- 
murous Salamis one might call it, on the island itseK, 
listening either to the green and purple waves ; to 
the bees in the odorous, abundant wild thyme ; or to 

■23 



354 APPENDIX. 

the voices of the historical multitude of souls that fill 
the spiritual air. 

m. 

There were yet two hours before the moon was 
to rise above Hymettus. A characteristically Greek 
clearness was in the night. A bat flew between the 
columns. The sharp tones of the petulant kestrels, 
birds resembling small hawks and which hang above 
the Parthenon by day in summer, were silent. The 
stroke of a mellow bell came from the distance. I 
heard the owl again, not far away. The strong sea 
breeze little by little grew wholly still. The subtle 
influence of loneliness, of twilight, and of the tran- 
scendently great memories, began to act on the im- 
agination. The air was fuller of historic presences 
than it had lately been of sunbeams. 

Looking up between the massive whiteness of the 
columns of the Parthenon, I saw the large and small 
stars coming forth in the infinite depths of the un- 
lighted Greek sky. Instantly Salamis and even the 
Acropolis were forgotten as a sentence of Euripides 
passed through my thoughts : — 

" Seest thou the abyss of sky that hangs above thee, 
^And clasps the earth around in moist embrace, 
This to be Jove beheve, this deem thou God." 

So Newton taught, of course with variations. So too, 
with unimportant changes, teaches the subtlest mod- 
ern inquiry. Space and Time, themselves, like noth- 
ing created, omnipresent, infinite, eternal, necessarily 
existent, are perhaps only modes of manifestation of 
Omnipresence and Self -existence. Not the ocean, 



APPENDIX. 355 

therefore, not the sun, no galaxy of stars, is the siib- 
limest natural object, but rather the literally infinite 
depth of Space, unfathomable by thought, and per- 
haps but a robe of an Omnipresence ulicomprehended, 
unapprehended, and best spoken of by the silence, 
and the conscientious daily deeds, of ineffable awe. 
I lay down in the west portico, looking up between 
the roofless shafts nnd capitals, and for an hour 
hardly remembered that I was in Greece, and yet 
perhaps was never more truly there. 

Euripides, at one angle of this Acropolis in the 
theatre, and Paul at another angle on Mars Hill, 
were on one point hardly farther removed from each 
other in their teaching than were the spots where 
they taught. 

The truth that God dwelleth not in temples made 
with hands seemed to sound from the familiar, un- 
comprehended constellations, as well as from the his- 
toric presences not wholly invisible in the starlight 
on Mars Hill. 

What a speech was that of Saul of Tarsus, when, in 
presence of this transfigured Parthenon, of the three 
statues of the three Minervas on the Acropolis, of 
the far-flashing marbles of the Propylea, of the route 
of the Panathenaic procession which ended at the 
temple of Minerva, of the Agora and North and South 
city of Athens crowded with statues of deities, of the 
Pnyx where prayer to gods preceded every popular 
assembly, and votive tablets to Jupiter Hypsistos 
clothed the else naked rock, of the cave of the Furies, 
of statues of Hermes, Earth, and Pan almost within 
touch, and of an audience educated by immemorial 



^Ob APPENDIX. 

worship of entempled gods, lie proclaimed, looking 
on these mountains, these islands, this sky, and this 
sea, that God, who made heaven and earth, dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands ! In a sea of tem- 
ples, its waves toppling with mortal threats above 
his head, a solitary swimmer, a stranger, a Jew, 
clings to the assertion that God dwelleth not in tem- 
ples ; and that assertion, after 1,800 years, rides out 
the hurricane. 

Even upon the Academy among the Cephissus 
olives with Plato's grave near it, or upon the Lyceum 
on the Ilissus where Aristotle founded an intellectual 
kingdom, no such historic dignity has been conferred 
as upon the gnarled rock of Mars Hill. It is much 
to say of any object that it is large and lofty enough 
to be seen across the vaporous horizons of nineteen 
centuries by the masses of only ordinarily educated 
men. Such an object, however, is this reddish gray 
limestone ridge of the Areopagus, while Pnyx and 
Propylea, Acropolis, and even the Parthenon, have 
long ago ceased to be commandingly visible to the 
many, through the dim mists of the far skies. 

Sixteen steps, each six feet and a half long, are 
cut in the south east face of the rock of Mars Hill, 
which projects from the northwest corner of the 
Acropolis, only a narrow interval dividing it from the 
Propylea stairs. It is about ten rods long at the top, 
and is scarred on its west slopes with many ancient, 
square cuttings in the rock for the basements of the 
otherwise traceless, but once numerous, Athenian 
houses. Its elevation is not over eighty or ninety 
feet ; its breadth varies from one hundred to thiee 



APPENDIX. 357 

hundred and fifty. Its length lies nearly east and 
west, and the seat of the Areopagus was at the east, 
which was considerably the higher end. Two quad- 
rangular shallow spaces, each about twenty-five feet 
long and ten wide, the upper one nearly four feet the 
higher in its level, are smoothed in the rock at the 
summit of the ridge, and receive the stairs up which 
probably Paul walked from the central public square 
just below, and in which his discussions had begun. 
Salamis, Cytherus, Parnes, Pentelicus, a part of Hy- 
mettus, of the Parthenon, and of the sea, were in 
view. In a strong favoring wind an arrow could be 
shot from Mars Hill to the Bema in the Pnyx where 
Demosthenes stood, or into the prison in which Soc- 
rates is thought to have drunk the hemlock, or against 
the shield of Minerva as she once watched colossal 
above the Acropolis. 

IV. 

I rose at last and walked to and fro in the Cella in 
front of the temple, and took a seat in the east por- 
tico, watching the now visibly upstretching aurora 
of the light yet beneath the verdureless upper ridge 
of Hymettus. I was once on the limestone rubble 
and among the heavily odorous wild thyme of the 
lower slope of Hymettus as the sun went down, and 
heard the hum of the bees, which make the honey 
celebrated in poetry now for twenty centuries, grow 
still, as the sea-breeze and the daylight died away to- 
gether. 

A bugle sounded now at intervals from the city ; 
while occasionally one Greek male voice, more im- 



358 APPENDIX. 

pressive than tTie instrument, sang in a house not far 
from the base of the Acropolis. 

I gazed long from the Parthenon on the growing 
illumination of the east, and thought of the invisible 
Marathon plain, twenty -two miles away to the north- 
east beyond Pentelicus, on whose solitary, breathless 
upper marble ravines the ghostly light had already 
risen. In the loneliness and majesty of the outlook, 
it was natural to remember the Greek devout belief, 
two hundred years after the battle of Marathon, that 
at midnight there were to be heard on the plain 
sounds of horses with spears in their breasts and the 
confused noise of contending men of arms. 

The Marathon plain is a crescent, one mile deep 
and six miles in length, stretching along a crescent 
bay. The tips of the horned plain are marsh. Seen 
from the triremes of the Asiatics as they approached 
the east side, the flat space looked broad enough for 
a battle line six miles long. Once on the spot, the 
invaders found a great marsh under the greenness of 
the tall rushes north of them, and a small marsh 
shut in by the flaming oleanders, agnus vitse, prickly 
hedges of rock-rose, and stunted pines to the south, 
so that there was only room enough for a two miles 
line. 

Ten thousand Athenians and Plateaus lay at the 
edge of the low, and now thinly wooded, gray and 
green, furzy limestone mountains, which rise a mile 
and a half and two miles from the sea. Fifty, sixty, 
or, as some think, an hundred thousand Asiatics, took 
position on the sandy, grassy, and now partly culti- 
vated plain, their ships on the smooth beach, or at 



APPENDIX. 359 

ancbor in the green and purple of the sea toward 
Euboea. 

Nine days the ten thousand looked at the sixty 
thousand. Five Athenian generals advised battle ; 
five dissuaded from an engagement ; but the famous 
casting vote of Callimachus — our cause at stake — 
gave Miltiades on the tenth day opportunity to exe- 
cute his daring plan of supplying the deficiency of 
his numbers by the momentum of a swift onset. 

The ground over which the two miles front of the 
Greek line approached on a run the bowmen of the 
enemy in order to avoid the second, or at latest the 
third or fourth discharge of arrows, is nearly level. 
It is often represented as a slope by historians who 
have not visited the spot. When I sat at the sum- 
mit of the mound raised over the one hundred and 
ninety -two of the Greek slain, a monument now 
only thirty-five feet high, and, as I found by meas- 
urement at the base, one hundred and sixty-six paces 
in circumference, the brown and green sods where 
that famous quickstep, the beginning of the indepen- 
dence of Europe, first shook the rough grass, were 
not above the level of my eyes. The course over 
Avhich the ten thousand charged an enemy until then 
never conquered, and outnumbering the Greeks six 
to one, descends only about thirty-five feet in half a 
mile. 

The left of the Asiatics was soon plunged into the 
small, south marsh, and the right into the great, 
north, reedy slough. But the thin centre of the 
Athenian line receded somewhat near this mound, 
until the victorious Greek wings closed upon the 
flanks of the Persian centre. 



360 APPENDIX. 

The north wind which moaned over the sometimes 
bare sand, the scanty, brown, dry grass, and the scat- 
tered thorny bushes at the flattened top of the easy 
slopes of this mound, now more than 2,300 years old, 
and the most venerable battle memorial in the world, 
seemed to ring, when I sat there, with the twang 
of the bowstrings and the rustling of the smiting 
shields and breaking spears which drove Asia out of 
Europe ; while on the white, sounding, pebbly shore, 
a half mile distant, to which the host of the Medes 
was forced back, one could with small effort yet 
see, among the flaming oleanders, the glance of the 
hatchet which cut off the hand of the Athenian who 
attempted to capture an eighth ship after seven had 
been taken. 

But, more distinctly than any other historic vision, 
could be descried that burnished shield held aloft on 
one of the gray spiked summits toward Athens, as an 
invitation to the Asiatic fleet to sail around Cape 
Sunium and attack the defenceless city. An Ameri- 
can on the battle-field of Marathon, if he understands 
what secession was in his own country, ought of all 
men to be the quickest to notice this traitorous sig- 
nal of the Athenian friends of the Mede, in their ex- 
hibition of that spirit of secession and division which 
finally ruined Greece. 

The swift march of the victorious Greek army 
back to Athens on the day of the battle saved the 
city from the fleet, and was the first act in the yet 
unrolling history of unsubjugated Europe. When, 
with five mounted soldiers and five on foot, as a 
guard against the lately murderous Turkish brigands, 



APPENDIX. 861 

I rode oyer the twenty-two miles of rough ground, 
mountain spurs, and sandy plain covered with brown 
grass, arbutus, dwarf-pine, agnus vitse, rock-rose, and 
odorous thyme, through which that march of wearied 
but invincible free citizens of what then was the 
only free city on the earth took its anxious course, 
every inch of the way flashed with a light of history 
not too brightly symbolized by the cool Greek morn- 
ing, with its floods of solar fire on land and sea. 

V. 

At this point of my thoughts, the moon began to 
rise upon Athens. Suddenly there appeared above 
gray Hymettus the upper edge of the same disc 
which Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Pericles 
saw cutting this same mountain line. As seen from 
my position, the palpitant, silver and yellow globe 
came up between the two south columns of the east 
front of the Parthenon. I was alone with the nearly 
level, soft, but full radiance poured upon the most 
famous marbles of all time. 

I had studied the Parthenon by the light of morn- 
ing, in the almost torrid blaze of the Greek summer 
noons, and at twilight, I now found, as I had ex- 
pected, that I had not seen its greatest glory, and 
that the Parthenon puts forth its chief enchantment 
only at midnight, in solitude, and by the moon. 

Certainly its symmetry and strength balanced 
each other now as perfectly as ever ; the proportions 
given to the marbles continued to move me, as they 
always had done, much as does the harmony given 
to sound in a great anthem. 



362 APPENDIX. 

But now, as never by day, tlie ravages of time 
were concealed ; a new aerialness and spirituality 
born of the new light, and a new solemnity born of 
the new hour, clothed the marbles with additional 
beauty and grace, until the temple seemed, not celes- 
tial indeed, but worthy to have been made by the 
best of the Greek gods in their happiest hours. 

I walked slowly among the 32 columns remaining 
erect out of the original 46, and along the 228 feet 
of the length and the 101 of the breadth, and around 
the entire ruin ; and finally stood at a distance from 
the southeast corner with my back to the moon, and 
.looking upon the whole, restoring in thought the 92 
figures of the metopes, the triglyphs, the marble rain- 
drops; the subdued delicate coloring on the stars un- 
der the roof and still visible on some of the traceries 
of the mouldings; the 34^ feet of height and 6^ of 
diameter of each column; the shields and wreaths 
of victory on their yet traceable places among the 
weather stains of the east front; the 525 feet of the 
Panathenaic frieze, the great statue of Minerva in 
the Cella, the matchless Phidian groups of the birth 
of Minerva from the head of Jove to the east, and of 
the contest of Minerva with Neptune for the posses- 
sion of Attica to the west pediment ; the crowded 
sculptures to the whole open ground of the summit 
of the Acropolis, the Greeks and foreigners of the 
Periclean age to the walls behind the columns. As- 
suredly the Parthenon in solitude, at midnight, and 
by the moon was the most beautiful human work I 
ever beheld. The Doric stands by sunlight, but 
floats by moonlight. 



APPENDIX* 363 

What Plato wrote over the door of his house ought 
to be written over the Portico of the Parthenon: 
Let no one enter here who does not understand ge- 
ometry. 

It is amazing that the delicate optical corrections 
applied to the architecture of the Parthenon were 
never discovered in modern times until 1837. My 
first act on my first visit to the Parthenon was to 
place my opera-glass, stretched to a height of seven 
inches, at one end of the upper step of the east front, 
and to look toward it with the eye at a level with 
the surface of the step 101 feet distant at the other 
end. I could not see the glass, because the appar- 
ently level floor is not a straight line, but a delicate 
curve rising some eight inches in the middle. I no- 
ticed repeatedly the same curvatare on studying the 
upper step of the west front. There is not a straight 
line in the Parthenon. The finer sense of beauty 
possessed by the Greeks led them to perceive, as 
modern architects until fifty years ago had hardly 
done, that when inclined and horizontal lines of con- 
siderable length are closely contrasted with each 
other, as they are in the floor and the columns, and 
especially in the base and slope of the triangle of the 
gable edges of the Parthenon, they look curved if 
made perfectly straight, and appear straight if they 
are delicately curved. Accordingly the line of the 
base of the gable and of the top of the steps is slightly 
convex ; all the outer pillars lean a little inward ; the 
columns would meet at a great height above the Par- 
thenon, if indefinitely prolonged ; the outer edges of 
all the flutings are convex curves, as I saw again and 



364 APPENDIX. 

again by looking along the edge of a fluting from the 
base ; and yet every one of these lines at a distance 
appears straight. 

It will be found that a long straight line always 
appears bent when a long curved line is drawn 
near it. 

The tangent to a large circle seems to be bent 
away from the curvature of the circle. The chord 
of a circle appears distorted by the arc. In the tri- 
angle of the pediment of a Greek temple, the long 
sloping line of the roof, and the long horizontal line 
of the base, have nearly the same relation to each 
other as the arc of a circle and its chord. 

The Medelaine, at Paris, sometimes superficially 
said to be constructed on the plan of the Parthenon, 
is built with straight lines, and every one of its longer 
dimensions appears slightly distorted, according to 
this law. I have looked across the steps of the- front 
and found them perfectly level ; but the steps at a 
distance appear as if sunken six or eight inches at 
the centre. The lower line of the gable of the Mad- 
eleine is horizontal, but appears concave, as it would 
not do if it had been made slightly convex. 

A young English architect, Pennethorne, shutting 
himself up in the Parthenon week after week, in 
1837, discovered the subtle laws of its structure. 
German architects noticed them the next year. The 
elaborate work of Penrose on Athenian architecture 
has now described them with mathematical accuracy. 
A most important passage of Yitruvius, once poorly 
understood, is at last .unlocked. It unlocks the Par- 
thenon. " The stylobate," says this military engi- 



APPENDIX. 865 

neer of J alius Csesar, " ought not to be constructed 
upon the horizontal level, but should rise gradually 
from the ends toward the centre, so as to leave there 
a small addition. The inconvenience which might 
arise from a stylobate thus constructed may be ob- 
viated by means of unequal scamilli. If the line of 
the stylobate were perfectly horizontal, it would ap- 
pear like the bed of a channel. In placing the capi- 
tals upon the shafts of the columns, they are not to 
be arranged so that the abaci may be in the same 
horizontal level, but must follow the direction of the 
upper members of the epistylium, which will deviate 
from the straight line drawn from the extreme parts 
in proportion to the addition given to the centre of 
the stylobate." " The columns at the angles, as well 
as those which are intended to be placed in the 
flanks, should have their axes inclined so that the 
faces next the walls of the Cella may become perpen- 
dicular to the stylobate." 

I was never weary of studying these optical cor- 
rections and refinements, unrecognized for centuries 
in both the theory and practice of the grosser mod- 
ern mind, although here articulately described by 
Vitruvius, and displayed everywhere in the Parthe- 
non as a part of the artistic requirements of the 
more refined instinct of the ancient Greek mind, the 
subtlety and delicacy of which they exhibit to the 
humiliation of this latest century, and as almost 
nothing else does, outside the severest analyses of 
Aristotle, the most ingenious of the dialogues of 
Plato, and the best orations of Demosthenes. 



APPENDIX. 



VI. 



I was yet to see the illumination of the Parthenon 
at midnight, by the high and the westering moon, 
by morning twilight, and by sunrise. While wait- 
ing for these scenes, I found not an object in the 
great outlook tbat did not draw nearer by night than 
by day. Lycabettus, Hymettus, Pentelicus, Parnes, 
Salamis, ^gina, the pass of Daphne, the groves of 
the Cephissus and Ilissus, the slopes of the Museum 
Hill and of the Pnyx, the theatre, the pillars of the 
Temple of Jupiter, could be read better than ob- 
scurely in the mild light ; but the history of all these 
sounded in the now hushed air more audibly than 
ever at noon. Nor did the newest Athens itself fail 
to send its keen breath to the heights of the Par- 
thenon. 

I leaned over the parapet of the Acropolis, on the 
side toward the modern city, and looked in vain for 
the print of that Venetian leprous sandal and that 
Turkish hoof which for six hundred years trod Greece 
into the slime. In the long bondage to the barba- 
rian, the Hellenic spirit was weakened, but not bro- 
ken. The Greek, with his fine texture, loathes the 
stolid, opaque greasiness of the Turkish, polygamistic 
temperament. Intermarriages between the races 
were very few. In spite of the theory of Fallmerayer, 
— whose name, as an authority for the assertion that 
the Greek race is extinct, puts any scholar of Athens 
into a rage, — it must be said that the modern Greek 
blood is more than half Hellenic. Only the Hel- 
lenic blood explains Hellenic countenances, yet easily 



APPENDIX. 367 

found; the Hellenic language, yet wonderfully un- 
corrupt ; and the Hellenic spirit, omnipresent in lib- 
erated Greece. 

Forty years ago not a book could be bought at 
Athens. To-da^^ one in eighteen of the whole popu- 
lation of Greece is in school. Fifty years of inde- 
pendence, and the Hellenic spirit has doubled the 
population of Greece, increased her reyenues five 
hundred per cent., extended telegraphic communica- 
tion over the kingdom, enlarged the fleet from 440 
to 5,000 vessels, opened eight ports, founded eleven 
new cities, restored forty ruined towns, changed 
Athens from a hamlet of hovels to a city of 60,000 
inhabitants, and planted there a royal palace, a Leg- 
islative Chamber, six type foundries, forty printing 
establishments, twenty newspapers, an astronomical 
observatory, and a university, with fifty professors 
and twelve hundred students. King Otho's German 
court, when he came from Nauplia to Athens in 
1835, lived at first in a shed that kept out neither 
the rain nor the north wind. On Constitution Place, 
in Athens, in 1843, the Hellenic spirit, without vio- 
lence, and by the display of force for but a few 
hours, substituted for personal power in Greece a 
constitutional government as free as that of Eng- 
land. George Finlay, the historian of the Greek 
Revolution, and who fought in it, affirms that, even 
before that event, degraded as the people were po- 
litically, a larger proportion could read and write 
than among any other Christian race in Europe. 
Undoubtedly long bondage, acting on the native 
adroitness of the race, taught the Greeks disingen- 

/ 



368 APPENDIX. 

uousness, — the old blood produced an Alcibiades as 
wel] as a Socrates, a Cleon as well as a Pliocion ; 
there was in it, as in American veins to-day, a ten- 
dency to social, commercial, and political sharp-deal- 
ing. But, -after fifty years of independence, the Hel- 
lenic spirit deyotes a larger percentage of public rev- 
enue to purposes of instruction tlian France, Italy, 
England, Germany, or even the United States. Mod- 
ern Greece, fifty years ago a slave and a beggar, to- 
day, by the confession of the most merciless statisti- 
cians, stands at the head of the list of self-educated 
nations. 

Railways, as even the less sanguine at Athens 
now hope, must at no ver}^ distant period cut the 
Isthmus of Corinth and the green, fat Boeotian plain, 
and bring the western Patras and northern Larissa 
into communication with Athens. Possibly the Pi- 
raeus, or Cape Sunium, and not Brindisi, may one day 
become the point of departure from Europe of mails 
to the East from London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. 
Greece desires to connect a Larissa railway with a 
Turkish raihvay soon to pierce the iron gates of the 
Danube. 

Politically impracticable as the aspiration may 
appear, the omnipresent Hellenic whispered idea is 
that Greece must ultimately possess Constantinople. 
England, with selfish and self-complacent sneers on 
her lips, and fear of Russia in her heart, often super- 
ficially ridicules this scheme, which America regards 
with sympathy. William Pitt said, in 1792, that 
the true doctrine of the balance of power in the East 
of Europe was that the influence of Russia should 



APPENDIX. 369 

not be allowed to increase, nor that of Turkey to de- 
cline. Wellington called the confirmation of Greek 
independence by the victory at Navarino an unto- 
ward event. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, how- 
ever, — whose deaths were as sincerely mourned in 
Greece as in America, — hailed that battle as the 
triumph of a sister people in a struggle which the 
United States were the fi.rst among nations to en- 
courage officially. 

George Canning hoped, and Athens has not ceased 
to dream, that a regenerated Greece might, from 
Constantinople, regenerate all the now subject Greek 
races on both shores of the ^gean. Of the 15,000,- 
000 of the population of European Turkey, less than 
4,000,000 are Ottomans ; the rest — Slavonians, 
Greeks, Wallachians, Albanians — profess the Greek 
religion or speak the Greek dialect. Demosthenes, 
Miltiades, Themistocles, it may be presumed, would 
adopt the Hellenic idea if in Greece to-day ; but, as 
a late American ambassador at Athens affirms, these 
men are remembered by the modern Greek as if they 
were yesterday in the Acropolis. In polyglot Turkey 
there are peoples, but no people. To-day it is calcu- 
lated that counting by individuals, the Greeks in Eu- 
ropean Turkey are to the Turks as six to one ; but, 
estimating them by their wealth, they are as thirty 
to one. In view of these facts, few statesmen now 
think Turkish power in Europe destined to endure a 
century. Already Greek merchants lead the commer- 
cial affairs of Constantinople, and possess the carry- 
ing trade of Turkey and the Levant. In Manchester, 
Liverpool, and London it is proverbial that, as mer- 

24 



370 APPENDIX. 

chants, tlie few Greeks are even more brilliantly suc- 
cessful than Scotchmen. Meanwhile, rich Greeks 
endow schools, libraries, and academies of art at 
Athens. They long to give this city intellectual 
primacy on the ^gean. The Hellenic spirit burns 
abroad from Athens upon the wide, languid East. 
Cornelius Felton affirms that he conversed on Mars 
Hill with a street lad, who, in twenty minutes, ex- 
cept the word cafe^ did not use a word that would 
not have been good Greek in the days of Pericles. 
So astonishing has been the success of efforts to im- 
prove the modern dialect, that Demosthenes' lan- 
guage now flows through daily life at the foot of the 
Acropolis so little adulterated that the students of 
the university, pronouncing Greek as we do not, give 
popular exhibitions of the tragedies of Sophocles and 
the comedies of Aristophanes, without the change of 
a syllable. 

YII. 

Walking to the southeast corner of the Acropo- 
lis, I looked down upon the great Dionysise theatre, 
uncovered in 1862 by Hofbaurath S track's German 
shovels. Some of the marble chairs, a few of the 
statues, half the seats, a multitude of the inscriptions, 
are still in their places. On one of the white thrones 
there is a lion's foot, sculptured perhaps in Hadri- 
an's time, and with the tip of the claw yet savagely 
sharp. Socrates once ironically commended Aga- 
thon, a poet, for having exhibited his wisdom in this 
theatre, or at least at this place, before 30,000 spec- 
tators. Some 20,000 or 30,000 people were accus- 
tomed to assemble at dawn here, in a semicircle cut 



1 



APPENDIX. 371 

in the slope of the Acropolis, and to listen to tragedies 
the voice of which, even now, as we read them, is to 
the ear of thought a majestic philosophical or theo- 
logical anthem, ^schylus and Sophocles and Eu- 
ripides so taught ethics and religion that the stage in 
the ancient Athenian democracy must be compared 
to the pulpit in modern times. Never was it the 
frivolous and sometimes filthy thing which is to-day 
called a theatre. Beneath the shadow of the Par- 
thenon and of Minerva herself, the free people sat 
down, as ^schylus says, " under the wings of gods." 
Along the beach at Phalerus, where Demosthenes 
declaimed to the waves, and beneath the sharp hills 
of jEgina and Salamis, the blue sea palpitated be- 
fore the spectators. The chief part of the Ilissus 
plain. Mount Hymettus, the ancient Agora and 
Pnyx, and numberless temples were in view. Above 
the unroofed amphitheatre hung the infinite depth 
of the mysteriously soft and bright sky of Greece. 
Subtle allusions to this outlook, abounding in Euri- 
pides, ^schylus, and Sophocles, prove curiously in 
detail that here Greek poetry, in the early spring 
mornings, found earth, sea, sky, and historic monu- 
ments a most organizing inspiration, and fit to match 
an audience composed of all that was then ths most 
brilliant in the world. 

vm. 

Only one mile from the Acropolis, as, returning 
slowly to the .Parthenon, I looked outward over the 
Cephissus plain, gleamed in the moonlight the mar- 
ble shaft above Ottfried Miiller's grave, on the hill 



372 APPENDIX. 

Colonus. A rifle shot to the left of this rustled the 
olive groves and vineyards on the spot supposed to 
have been occupied by Plato's Academy. There 
flowed the Cephissus, giving fatness to its else sterile 
plain as the Nile to Egypt, and fatness almost as if 
of Egypt, lading the thick boughs of pomegranate, 
fig, and olive, as they bend thirstily over the narrow 
stream. When I walked on its banks, pomegranate 
blossoms filled their redness with the sunbeams until 
they seemed themselves luminous. Olives threw the 
silver edges of their foliage into the breast of the 
Salamis wind. Young figs, cherries, quinces, apricots, 
lay cool under the thick green of the boughs, that 
drew from the yellow banks the sap of ripeness. 
Plato's farm lay not far away. The gardens were 
ridged everywhere for tlie irrigating streams, which, 
nearer the sea, almost exhaust the water of the river. 
Not far from Plato's Academy I found the bed of 
the stream, in June, seven feet below the top of the 
bank and the whole pebbly and sandy channel twenty- 
five feet wide. There were about nine feet breadth 
by six inches depth of clear water, but it was scat- 
tered waywardly here and there in its wide channel 
by its considerably strong current, and T walked 
easily across the stream where the vegetation was 
heaviest. 

Plato's Academy v/as a garden of walks and col- 
onnades and marble lecture-rooms open to the sky, 
in a sea of gardens. He was attracted hither not 
only by the beauty of the place, but by the crowd of 
pupils that was here before his time. The critics 
and ancient authors make the identity of the spot 



APPENDIX. 373 

with that of Plato's school very clear ; the place is 
yet called Academy ; I found five intell'gent country 
people on the plain who, separately and from differ- 
ent spots, pointed it out to me by that name. As I 
entered these Plato grounds, I found myself facing 
an embowered, large, stucco garden-house and look- 
ing down a covered arcade 150 feet in length, its top 
laden with heavy grape clusters. Here were pome- 
granates, oranges, lemons, cacti, the pepper - tree, 
peaches, apricots ; the red oleander shot up to an 
enormous size ; even the proverbial darkness of the 
foliage of the cypress acquired an additional vigor 
and gloss of duskiness. There are no ruins left of the 
Academy, unless four round pillars, about ten inches 
in diameter, of unjluted, rough gray stone, projecting 
from a garden bed to a height of some four feet, and 
without capitals, are to be taken as such. A few sad 
pieces of broken sculpture, some of it delicately chis- 
elled and evidently very ancient, have been built into 
the wall of a cistern near the garden-house : a tiger's 
head and a human figure with a harp are the best of 
these fragments, which very possibly may have been 
a part of the ornaments of the splendid walks ex- 
isting here in Plato's day. Bird songs filled the 
fragrant air ; but the spiritual posture of listen- 
ing, loitering ease was impossible without sacrilege. 
When the voices of pupils and teachers were heard 
here, and the intellectual atmosphere flashed those 
lightnings which have illuminated now twenty cen- 
turies, this was not a place to loiter in ; but rather 
one where the sleep of the brain should have been 
like that of a top, the rest of infinite motion. Plato's 
brain plainly had no other rest than that. 



374 APPENrJix. 

Plato's philosophy, like his own nature, solves 
many contradictions by its largeness, and leaves 
many unsolved because its largeness was not whole- 
ness. If Aristotle lacks Plato's height of soul, Plato 
lacks Aristotle's realistic tendency. If Plato had 
too much wing and too little force in the clasping 
and tearing talons, Aristotle had too little force in 
the wings, although none too much in the talons. 
Socrates, who invented Definition and Ethics, the 
former as an -instrument in the latter, was a more 
massive and more nearly whole nature than either 
of the two, in spite of traces of ancouthness. Al- 
though inferior to each in many points of culture, nis 
rough growth, the core of which is olive wood of as 
fine a grain as is to be found in Plato or Aristotle, 
is denser than theirs, and outweighs either of them 
bulk for bulk. Socrates is the sap of both Plato and 
Aristotle, so that he lives yet in the spiritual boiighs 
of this Academy, whicli have spread so widely and 
rustled now so long that it may perhaps be said the 
branches will have no heavier storms to ride through 
than they have already met without breaking. This 
is the most moving thought at the Academy and at 
the Lyceum, — Academy, Lyceum, very modern 
words ! — that while a thousand other philosophies 
have perished, that of Plato or Aristotle had such 
worth that after twenty centuries it seems likely 
never to be forgotten, except in some retrogression 
of the culture bf the race. Aristotle and Plato, and 
not the mythological shoots which Xerxes burnt on 
the Acropolis, were the true sacred olives of Athens ; 
and the world has filled its plains with slips and 



APPENDIX. 375 

grafts taken from their boughs ; and yet that fruit 
is best which is not wholly Plato's, nor wholly Aris- 
totle's, but born of the sap of both flowing together 
in scions grafted into a certain Vine, older than they 
and younger, and which has its roots — not in At- 
tica, but in the world to which all men haste ! 

IX. 

It was impossible, in looking off from the Acrop- 
olis as midnight drew near, not to dwell long on 
the Pnyx and the Bema, on the northwest slope of 
the Museum Hill, over against the Parthenon to the 
southwest. The famous semicircle, where govern- 
ments of the people, for the people, by the people, 
through public speech, began, slopes from the Bema 
until the lower side of the field is eighteen or twenty 
feet less elevated than the base of the speaker's plat- 
form, and yet its corners to the right and left of the 
speaker are ten or twelve feet higher than that base. 
The wall buttressing the lower part of the field is 
of Cyclopean, roughly bevelled, polygonal stones. I 
measured in it blocks eight and twelve feet long by 
six and seven wide and four and five thick. The 
structure at one point is yet sixteen feet high, and if 
it was ever high enough to make the ground above 
it level, must have risen to an elevation of thirty- 
five or forty feet. The upper edge of the field is cut 
away, leaving a face of stone in places sixteen feet 
high, and from this at the centre of the semicircle 
projects the rock of the Bema, continuous with the 
scarped ledge. This majestic speaker's platform 
rose nine feet above the field in which the audience 



376 APPENDIX. 

sat or stood, and was eleven feet wide from side to 
side, and seven feet deep from front to back. A mi- 
nor, lower and broader platform was in front of it, 
and nine steps ascended it on tlie left and on the 
right. 

I gazed alone from the Acropolis on this gray, 
open, solitary pasture as it gleamed under the moon ; 
the audiences of 6,000 were not wholly unseen in the 
air ; Pericles, ^schines moved among the ghosts ; 
and from the Bema northward looked Demosthenes, 
his eyes fastened on Philip of Macedon. 

Whoever would appreciate Athenian oratory must 
keep in the foreground of his thoughts the immense 
contrast between the opportunities of ancient and 
modern public address. 

In Demosthenes' day there were no newspapers. 
The oration in Greece and Rome occupied the place 
of the modern editorial, and, to a great degree, of the 
telegraphic dispatch. Think of the occasion when 
Cicero appeared in the Forum to announce in a speech 
that Catiline had left the city. How vastly would 
the circumstances have been altered if newspapers 
had that morning previously appeared with the in- 
telligence and appropriate leading articles. The Ro- 
man Forum and the Greek Bema were without the 
rival of the public press. 

Audiences in the Pnyx commonly numbered from 
5,000 to 7,000. In cases of highest moment, no law 
could be passed unless 6,000 votes in its favor were 
deposited in the urns. Citizens were dissuaded by 
the famous vermilion colored cord from absence from 
the assemblies. That Athenian custom of sweeping 



1 



APPENDIX. 377 

the Agora with a rope chalked with red, and fining all 
who received a mark and were careless of their polit- 
ical duties, is to be imitated yet by other methods 
in republican governments, if these latter are to en» 
dare. The chief danger of good men m a republic is 
their tendency to abstam from political painstaking 
except in cases of great importance. In Athens free- 
men had practically mstituted, as they yet will in 
America, compulsory voting. 

The structure of the Athenian law courts obliged 
every accused citizen to defend himself by a speech 
before a jury, and thus made oratory indispensable to 
success in any prominent career. Others besides Soc- 
rates were obliged to defend themselves by a speech 
before a jury. Grote says that the nature of the 
Athenian courts was such that oratory was as need- 
ful to every citizen as weapons to a soldier in war. 

Hence the abundant attention to rhetoric and 
logic in the ancient Athenian schools. The Athe- 
nian rhetorician was necessitated by the Athenian 
law court. These civil habits made the Athenians 
better judges of excellence in public speaking than 
any other collective people has ever been, or now 
seems likely to be. The standards of excellence in 
public oratorical discussion were varied until speeches 
like those of Demosthenes, which no audience in 
America, except the Senate or Supreme Court, could 
follow easily, were not only not unappreciated by 
the mass of the immense audience in the Pnyx, but 
inexorably demanded. There will not soon come 
another day like that. 

These were the true secrets of the merit of Athe- 



378 



APPENDIX. 



nian oratory, aside from the natiye traits of the Greek 
mind. Too much has been said superficially of the 
objects visible from the Bema, as if they were the 
principal source of Athenian eloquence. I can give 
them only a secondary value as a means of inspira- 
tion ; and yet what vigor lay in even this subordinate 
incitement. Salamis and the sea almost within view, 
the Acropolis and Parthenon on the lofty right-hand 
outlook, the Agora on the low left-hand, the city in 
front, Marathon beyond Pentelicus, the Academy 
among the olive groves in the Cephissus plain, the 
sacred road to Eleusis gleaming out from the pass of 
Daphne, temples to the supreme deities on all the 
bills; Cytherus, Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus 
looking down on the orator ; the burial field of all 
who fell in Athenian wars, except the dead of Mar- 
athon, before him in the Athenian plain; 6,000 culti- 
vated freemen within the reach of his voice, — what 
solemnity must have existed in Demosthenes' appeals 
here to " yonder Propylea, that Parthenon, those 
Porticos and Docks," ''to those to whom Athens 
granted burial — all brave men," and " to the earth 
and the gods ! " 

Undoubtedly a high rank among the incitements 
is due to the religious spirit which opened the de- 
bates with lustrations and prayers, watched the clouds 
during the assemblies, and, on important occasions, 
dissolved the gatherings if lightning or thunder, or 
even rain, seemed to indicate that the unseen world 
looked angrily on the people. " A portent ! for I 
felt a drop of rain," wrote one of the listeners here. 
It is incalculable what political influence the awe of 



APPENDIX. 379 

the unseen had in all Greek history. No one under- 
stands the assemblies to which Demosthenes spoke, 
until the invisible becomes as real to him as it was 
to an Athenian. 

It was now midnight on the Acropolis, and the 
unseen was more visible in the hushed solitude than 
the seen. The Parthenon restored itself; the mar- 
bles stolen away were lifted to their sublime places. 
The gates of the Propylea, once more on their 
hinges, were flung wide open. Up the sacred ascent 
poured with faces of fire flashing armor, music, and 
incense, the shadowy leagues of a Panathenaic pro- 
cession. On Mars Hill stood Paul, on the Bema 
Demosthenes, each more victorious, historically, than 
ever was Minerva of the shield and spear, and the 
eyes of both now fastened on Europe and America 
beyond the West. Aristotle looked on the Ilissus 
fretting the rocky grounds of the Lyceum ; on the 
telescopic tube opened in the tireless eye of the ob- 
servatory ; and on the University in the sleeping mod- 
ern city. Plato, in the night, hovered above the 
olives of the Academy, and with extended hand 
blessed the church spires beneath the moon. Among 
the pillars of the Parthenon, and whiter than they, 
moved and wdiispered Phidias, Pericles, ^schylus, 
Sophocles, Euripides, and multitudinous forms un- 
known. Above the Salamis Strait, a transfigured 
cloud of souls glanced upon a new earth. On the 
blue sea flashed swift Phoenician sails. To and fro 
over the rock-cuttings of the Cecropian and Cranaan 
city moved noiseless men from Ionia, Mythia, Caria, 
and Phrygia. From the unseen Marathon came the 



380 APPENDIX. 

sounds the Greeks heard there at midnight, and 
glided softly a wind from Troy. Socrates seemed to 
step colossal through the night beneath the stars, and 
wherever his feet touched Athens, the rock shook 
and the earth flamed. 

Greece was intended to do what it has done. What 
God meant to accomplish in the world by the Greeks 
is to be known by what He has accomplished. This 
race was sent to teach Philosophy, Eloquence, and 
Art ; we know that this was its mission, because this 
has been its history. What Providence does, it from 
the first intends. When as yet Rome was not, it 
was therefore certain that Greece would teach Rome. 
When the majestic precipices rose at Delphi, it was 
already sure that the Castalian spring at their base 
would flow into all the earth, and cool the thirsting 
lips of culture through twenty centuries. When the 
blocks of the Parthenon were hewn from Mt. Pentel- 
icus, it had been immemoriably fixed in the order of 
the world that this temple should be visible to edu- 
cated thought to the last ages and from the remotest 
lands. What Greece has done for the latest born of 
time in Europe and America through Socrates, Phi- 
dias, Pericles, Euripides, Demosthenes, Plato, and 
Aristotle, is what these men, advancing as a plan 
from the first, arriving as facts and now advancing 
as memories, were from the first intended to do. 
" The plan of Jove was being accomplished," sings 
Homer, in the sublime st line of the Iliad. But we 
now see in that plan a score of centuries which were 
invisible to Homer, although already prearranged in 
his day; and the end is not yet. Greek culture is 



APPENDIX. 881 

the left arm of God visibly let down into liist©ry, 
as Christian culture is the right arm. As once on 
Lebanon at noon listening to Jewish history, so in 
the Parthenon at midnight listening to Grecian his- 
tory, I heard but one voice, God ! God ! God ! who 
was, who is, and who is to come ! 

XI. 

Two of the delicately carved, marble, sacred 
chairs stand yet in the Cell a of the Parthenon ; and 
when the midnight watch had passed, I lay down 
before one of them on the marble floor. An old sol- 
dier from the guard-house at the gates of the Acrop- 
olis found me: "E freddo," he said kindly, with his 
hand on the stone. " Va bene," I replied, and pre- 
pared myseK to sleep sitting in the chair. But he 
brought me a strong, thick blanket, and went away 
with payment. I lay down at the centre of the Cella 
before the ehair and slept by snatches. Now and 
then I was wide awake, and each time the scene was 
changed. 

XII. 
When the morning -star began to pale, the city 
was stiller than at midnight. Between Hymettus 
and Pentelicus a wonderful sky, all soul and not 
sky, showed the earliest golden tint of day. A bee 
passed, as if on his way to Hymettus or the Ilissus. I 
ascended the winding stairs and sat at the very top 
of the west point of the Parthenon, above the col- 
umns, at the corner toward the Bema. The inde- 
scribable depth of soul in the Eastern sky, and in the 
colors of a crystalline fineness of texture, that I never 



382 APPENDIX. 

saw except in Greece, deepened as a light sea-breeze 
began to move toward the sun. A nearly impercep- 
tible mist trailed along the east slope of Parnes ; a 
delicate level cloud hung below the top of Penteli- 
cus ; about Cytherus there was rolling vapor, but 
elsewhere none. The fair, scarless city began to roll 
its wheels. A kestrel above the east end of the 
Acropolis balanced in the morning light. A raven 
flew out toward the sea. The solitary mists took 
scarlet irradiation. The moon grew pale above 
J^gina. A kestrel screamed in the Parthenon. 
Pentelicus threw the sharp, dark blue outline of 
its grace against a silver and golden sky. A light 
breeze from the Salamis and the Cephissus olives had 
in it indescribable freshness. This was the hour 
when assemblies gathered at the Pnyx ; and now on 
its slope the ghosts did not disperse at the dawn. 
Cytherus, Parnes, Pentelicus, Hymettus, the pass of 
Daphne, the sacred road to Eleusis, were full of 
hosts which did not flee, as, flooding them all, came 
forth the same sun which Homer saw. The eyes that 
had looked on Philip of Macedon continued to look 
on America. With the westering rays, however, and 
caught up into the advancing beams, the invisible 
hosts moved forward ; and the gleaming inner light 
of historic souls, authors of the world's intellectual 
culture, began, with the hours of awakened human 
memory, their daily circuit of the earth. 



1 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 

By JOSEPH COOK. 



The Boston Monday Lectures are now included in the following 
ten works : — 

Vol. 1. — Biology, with Preludes on Current Events. (17th edition.) 
Vol. 2. — TRA]srscENDENTALiSM, with Preludcs on Current Events. 

(Gth edition.) 
Vol. 3. — Oethodoxt, with Preludes on Current Events. (5th edi- 
tion.) 
Vol. 4. — Conscience, with Preludes on Current Events. 
Vol.5. — Heredity, with Preludes on Current Events. 
Vol.6. — Marriage, with Preludes on Current Events. 
Vol.7. — Labor, with Preludes on Current Events. 
Vol. 8. — Socialism, with Preludes on Current Events. 
Vol. 9. — OcciDE^iT, with Preludes on Current Events. (A new volume.) 
Vol.10. — Okiemt, with Preludes on Current Events. {In Press.) 



Price of each volume, $1.50. For sale by all Booksellers. Sent, 
post-paid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., Boston. 



/. AMERICAN OPINIONS. 



The Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1880. 

The Boston Monday Lectureship is now in its fifth year. One 
hundred and thirty-five lectures on abstruse and difficult topics 
have been delivered to noon audiences of extraordinary size, and 
containing sometimes two hundred ministers, with large numbers 
of teachers and other educated men. Each lecture has been pre- 
ceded by a short address, called a Prelude on Current Events, and 
discussing some topic of urgent political or religious importance, 
like civil service reform, temperance, fraud in elections, Mormonism, 
the Chinese question, the Bible in schools, the Indian question, or 
the negro exodus. In revising the stenographic reports, both the 
lecture and the prelude are usually somewhat expanded by their 
author, so that a prelude in i:)rint is often more than thirty minutes 
in length. The lecturer has thus treated two important topics on 
each occasion; and the contrast of the practical matter of the prel- 
ude with the more speculative and scientific substance of the lec- 
ture, has assisted in fixing public attention upon both. Mr. Cook 
has been the first speaker to employ preludes in this contrast with 
theological and metaphysical lectures. 

Great pains have been taken to secure the fullest information for 
the preludes from ofiicial sources at Washington and elsewhere. 
The committee in charge of the Boston Monday Lectureship em- 
braces thirty-six members, of whom twelve are an Executive Board, 
representing different evangelical denominations in Boston, and 
twenty-four are scattered through the country all the way to Caii- 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



fornia. Written permission to add their names to tlie committee 
has been given by such men as President McCosh of Princeton Col- 
lege, Proiessor Hitchcock of New York, Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn, 
Bishop Huntington of Syracuse, Professor Mead of Oberlin College, 
Professor Curtiss of Chicago Theological Seminary, Dr. Post of St. 
Louis, and Drs. Gibson and Stone of San Francisco. It will readily 
be seen that consultation from time to time by letter with so large 
and distinguished a committee, and with other public men with 
whom the lecturer forms acquaintance in his extensive travel, 
together with the opportunity of wide personal observation, makes 
the preludes an important source of suggestions as to current reform, 
and a most useful means of discussing popular evils as they arise. 
The independence of the platform adds to the effect of its treatment 
of living issues. It is noticeable, that, in both the Scotch and Eng- 
lish republications of Mr. Cook's volumes, the preludes are included 
in full. It is believed that no leading articles in any newspaper in 
England or America are so extensively copied by the presa as the 
preludes of the Boston Monday Lectureship. Each one is intended 
to be a compact prose sonnet, discussing curi-ent events from the 
religious point of view. 

The thirty lectures delivered in the second year of the lectureship, 
which was founded in 1875, are comprised in the three volumes 
entitled " Biology," " Transcendentalism," and " Orthodoxy." The 
results of the third year of the lectureship are embraced in the vol- 
umes entitled " Conscience," *' Heredity," and " Marriage." Those 
of the fourth year are summarized in the books called " Labor " and 
" Socialism," now in press. It is understood that the present series 
of lectures will make two more volumes, to be entitled " Culture " 
and "Miracles." 

During the third year of the lectureship, Mr. Cook gave six lec- 
tures in New York City, besides speaking in most of the prominent 
cities of the North-eastern States. In the season of 1878 and 1870, 
he conducted a Boston Monday-noon Lectureship and a New York 
Thursday-evening Lectureship at the same time. In his course of 
the preceding year in New York City, he had been introduced by 
presiding oflicers like Professor Hitchcock, Dr. William Adams, 
Professor Schaff, and William Cullen Bryant, and the audiences 
were extraordinarily large. On the closing evening of his second 
course in New York, some two hundred people were turned away, 
unable to find standing-room, and the money for their tickets was 
refunded. In the spring and summer succeeding the last full course 
cf the lectureship, he visited California, and performed a service at 
the dedication of a chapel in the Yosemite Valley. He studied and 
discussed Mormonism in Salt Lake City, and the Chinese question 
in California. 

In the year ending July 4, 1878, Mr. Cook delivered one hundred 
and fifty lectures; sixty in the East, ten of them in New York City, 
and sixty in the West; besides thirty new lectures in Boston, which 
were pul)lished in that city. New York, and London ; issued three 
volumes, one ot which is now in its sixteenth and another in its 
thirteenth edition; and travelled, on his lecture-trijps, ten thousand 
five hundred miles.. 

In the year ending July 4, 1879, he delivered one hundred and 
sixty lectures; seventy-two in the East, twenty of them in Boston 
and ten in New York, seventy in the West, five in Canada, two in 
Utah, and eleven in California, of which five were in San Francisco. 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



He twice crossed the continent in the last four months of the season, 
and in the last nine months has travelled, on his lecture-trips, 
twelve thousand five hundred miles. In the former of these seasons 
he addressed large audiences in sixteen, and in the latter in seven- 
teen, college towns. 

It is worth noting that Mr. Cook has no church nor parish work 
on his hands, although he not infrequently speaks in a church on 
Sundays. Living opposite the Boston Athenaeum Library, and 
using it as much as though it were his own, the lecturer has found 
time, outside of all his other work, to carry through the press, in 
three years, the eight volumes of Monday Lectures, issued by 
Houghton, Osgood, & Co. 

Mr. Cook had a previous preparation of at least ten years' study, 
at home and abroad, for the discussion of the relations of Chris- 
tianity to the sciences. 

" The New York Independent " owns the copyright of the p^-esent 
series of lectures, and sells the right of republication to otk&r papers-. 
There are now published, and have been for the last two years, over 
one hundred thousand newspaper copies of the Boston Monday 
Lectures and preludes in full, and over three hundred thousand 
copies of the preludes and parts of the lectures. The Committee of 
the Boston Monday Lectureship reported in March last, that, at a 
moderate estimate, more than a million readers in the United States 
and Great Britain are reached weekly. 

In September, 1880, Mr. Cook intends to suspend his American 
lectures for a year, at least, and to seek opportunity for rest and 
study in England and Germany. 

President James McCosh, Princeton College, in the Catholic Presbyte- 
rian for September, 1879. 
What influence I may have had on Mr. Cook, I do not know; but 
I am pleased to notice that on intuition and several other subjects, 
he is promulgating to thousands the same views I had been thinking 
out in my study, and propounding to my students, in Belfast and 
in Princeton. From scattered notices, I gather that he was born (in 
1838) and reared, and still lives in his leisure days, in that region in 
which the loveliest of American lakes, Lake Champlain and Lake 
George, lie embosomed among magnificent mountains. He was 
trained for college at Phillips Academy, under the great classical 
teacher, Dr. Taylor ; was two j-ears at Yale College, and two years 
at Harvard, graduating at the latter in 18G5, first in philosophy and 
rhetoric of his class. He then joined Andover Theological Semi- 
nary, went through the regular three-years' course there, and lin- 
gered a year longer at that place, pondering deeply the relations of 
science and religion, which continued to be the theme of his thoughts 
and his study for the next ten years. At this stage he received 
much impulse from Professor Park, who requires every student to 
reason out and to defend his opinions ; and many sound philosophic 
principles from Sir William Hamilton and other less eminent men 
of the Scottish school. He spoke from time to time at religious 
meetings, and was for one year the pastor of a Congregational 
church, but never sought a settlement. In September, 1871, "he went 
abroad, and studied for two years, under special directions from 
Tholuck, at Halle, Berlin, and Heidelberg ; and received a mighty 
influence from Julius Muller of Halle, Dorner of Berlin, Kimo 
Fischer of Heidelberg, and Hermann Lotze of Gottingen. He tlien 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



travelled for a time in Italy, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Turkey, Sviitzer- 
land, France, England, and Scotland. Returning to the United 
States in 187o, he took \ip his residence in Boston, and became a 
lecturer in New England on the subject to which his studies had 
been so long directed, the relations of religion and science. For a 
time he lectured at Amherst College ; and, while doing so, he was 
invited to conduct noon meetings in Boston. 

Mr. Cook did not take up the work he has accomplished, as a 
trade, or by accident, or from impulse; but for years he had been 
preparing for it, and prepared for it by an overruling guidance. I 
regard Josej^h Cook as a Heaven-ordained man. He comes at the 
fit time; that is, at the time he is needed. He comes forth in Bos- 
ton, which is undoubtedly the most literary city in America, and 
one of the great literary cities of the world. I am not sure that 
even Edinburgh can match it, now that London is drawing towards 
it and gathering up the intellectual youth of Scotland. It has a 
character of its own in several respects. I have here to speak only 
of its religious character. Half a century ago its Orthodoxy had sunk 
into Unitarianism — a re-action against a formal Puritanism — led by 
Channing, who adorned his baldsystem by his high personal char- 
acter and the eloquence of his style. People could not long be satis- 
fied by a negation, and Parkerism followed ; and a convulsive life 
was thrown into the skeleton of natural religion by an a priori 
speculation, derived from the pretentious philosophies of Germany, 
in which the Absolute took the place of God, and untested intuition 
the place of the Bible. The movement culminated in Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, a feebler but a more lovable Thomas Carlyle, — the one 
coming out of a decaying Puritanism, the other out of a decaying 
Covenanterism. But those who would mount to heaven in a. balloon 
have sooner or later to come down to earth. The young men of 
Harvard College, led by their able president, have more taste for 
the new physical science, with its developments, than for a visionary 
metaphysics. As I remarked some time ago in a literary organ, 
Unitarianism has died, and is laid out for decent burial. Mean- 
while there is a marked revival of Evangelism, and the Congrega- 
tional and Episcopal churches have as much thoughtfalness and 
culture as the Unitarians. Harvard now cares as little for Unita- 
rianism as it does for Evangelism — simply taking care that Ortho- 
doxy does not rule over its teaching. But the question arises, What 
are our young men to believe in these days when Darwinism and 
Spencerism and Evolutionism are taught in our journals, in our 
schools, and in our colleges ? To my knowledge, this question is as 
anxiously put by Unitarian parents of the old school, who cling 
firmly to the great truths of natural religion, and to the Bible as a 
teacher of morality, a^ it is by the Orthodox. 

Such was the state of thought and feeling, of belief and unbelief, 
oi apprehension and of desire, when Joseph Cook came to Boston 
without any flourish of trumpets preceding him. Numbers were 
prepared to welcome him as soon as they knew what the man was, 
and what he was aiming at. Orthodox ministers, not very well able 
themselves to Avrestle with the new forms of infidelity, rejoiced in 
the appearance of one who had as much power of eloquence as 
Parker, and vastly more acquaintance with philosophy than the 
mystic Emerson, and who seemed to know what truth and what 
error there are in these doctrines of development and heredity. The 
best of the Uritarians, nctt knowing whither their sons were drifti/ig 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



were pleased to find one who could keep them from open infidelity. 
Young men, tired of old rationalism, which they saw to be very irra- 
tional, delighted to listen to one who evidently spoke boldly and 
sincerely, and could talk to them of these theories about evolution 
and the origin of species and the nature of man. The consequence 
was, his audiences increased from year to year. He first lectured in 
the Meionaon in 1875. The attendance at noon on Mondays was so 
large that his meetings had to be transferred to Park-street Church 
in October, 1876 ; and finally, in 1876-77, in 1877-78 and 1879, to the 
enormous Tremont Temple, which is often crowded to excess. In 
the audience there were at times two hundred ministers, many 
teachers, and other educated jjersons. His lectures, in whole or in 
abstract, appeared in leading newspapers, and his fame spread over 
all America ; and, continuing his Monday addresses in Boston, he 
was invited, on the other days of the week, to lecture all over the 
country. He now lectures in the principal cities from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, always drawing a large and approving audience. 

Some scientific sciolists have thrown out doubts as to the accuracy 
of his knowledge, but have not been able to detect him in any mis> 
statement of fact. He lightens and thunders, throwing a vivid light 
on a topic by an expression or comparison, or striking a presumptu- 
ous error as by a bolt from heaven. He is not afraid to discuss the 
most abstract, scientific, or philosophic themes before a popular au- 
dience; he arrests his hearers first by his earnestness, then by ^.he 
clearness of his exposition, and fixes the whole in the mind by the 
earnestness of his moral purpose. 

Rev. Professor A. P. Peabody, of Harvard University, in the 
Independent. 

Joseph Cook is a phenomenon to be accounted for. No othei 
American orator has done what he has done, or any thing like it; 
and, prior to the experiment, no voice would have been bold enough 
to predict its success. 

We reviewed Mr. Cook's "Lectures on Biology" with unquali- 
fied praise. In the present volume we find tokens of the same 
genius, the same intensity of feeling, the same lightning flashes of 
impassioned eloquence, the same \'ise-like hold on the rapt attention 
and absorbing interest of his hearers and readers. AYe are sure that 
we are unbiased by the change of subject; for, though we dissent 
from some of the dogmas which the author recognizes in passing, 
there is hardly one of his consecutive trains of thought in which we 
are not in harmony with him, or one of his skirmishes in which our 
iymj)athies are not wholly on his side. 

Rev. Dr. Thomas Hill, Ex-President of Harvard University, in the 
Christian Rerjister. 

These lectures are crowded so full of knowledge, of thought, of 
argument, illumined with such passages of eloquence and power, 
spiced so frequently with deep-cutting though good-natured irony, 
that I could make no abstract from them without utterly mutilat- 
ing them. 

Professor Francis Bowen, Harvard University. 

I do not know of any work on conscience in which the true 
theory of ethics is so clearly and forcibly presented, together with 
the logical inferences from it in support of the great truths of re- 
ligion. 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



The Princeton Revieio. 

Mr. Cook has already become famous; and these lectures are 
among the chief works that have, and we may say justly, made him 
so. Their celebrity is due partly to the place and circumstances of 
their delivery, but still more to their inherent power, without which 
no adventitious aids could have lifted them into the deserved promi- 
nence they have attained. . . . Mr. Cook is a great master of analy- 
sis. . . . The lecture on the Atonement is generally just, able, and 
unanswerable. . . . We think, on the whole, that Mr. Cook shows 
singular justness of view in his manner of treating the most diffi- 
cult and periolexing themes; for examx)le, God in natural law, and 
the Trinity. 

Boston Daily Advertiser. 

At high noon on Monday, Tremont Temple was packed to suffo- 
cation and overflowing, although five thousand people were in the 
Tabernacle at the saine hour. The Temple audience consisted 
chiefly of men, and was of distinguished quality, containing hun- 
dreds of persons well known in the learned i^rofessions. Wendell 
Phillips, Edward Everett Hale, Bronson Alcott, and many other 
citizens of eminence, sat on the platform. No better proof than the 
character of the audience could have been desired to show that Mr. 
Cook's popularity as a lecturer is not confined to the evangelical 
denominations. (Feb. 7.) 

It is not often that Boston people honor a public lecturer so much 
as to crowd to hear liim at the noon-tide of a week-day; and, when 
it does this month after month, the fact is proof positive that his 
subject is one of engrossing interest. Mr. Cook, perhaps more than 
any gentleman in the lecture-Held the past few years, has been so 
honored. (Feb. M.) 

The Independent. 

We know of no man that is doing more to-day to show the rea- 
sonableness of Christianity, and the unreasonableness of unbelief; 
nor do we know of any one who is doing it with such admirable 
tolerance yet dramatic intensity. 

Professor Borden P. Bovme, of Boston University, in the Sunday 
Afternoon. 
In the chapters on the theories of life, these discussions are, in 
many respects, models of argument; and the descriptions of tlie 
facts under discussion are often unrivalled for both scientific exact- 
ness and rhetorical adequacy of language. In the present state of 
the debate there is no better manual of the argument than the work 
in hand. The emptiness of the mechanical explanation of life was 
never more clearly shown. 

The Bibliotheca Sacra. 
There is no other work on biology, there is no other work on the- 
ology, with which this volume of lectures can well be compared ; it 
is a, book that no biologist, whether an originator or a mere middle- 
m-.m in science, would ever have written. Traversing a very wide 
field, cutting right across the territories of rival specialists, it con- 
tains not one important scientific misstatement, either of fact or 
theory. Not only the propositions, but the dates, the references, the 
names, and the histories of scientific discoveries and speculations, 
are presented as they are found in the sources whence tbey are 
taken, or, at least, with only verbal and minor changes. 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



The Eclectic Magazine. 
It may be said unqualifiedly that the pulpit has never brought 
Buch comprehensiveness and precision of knowledge, combined with 
such logical and literary skill, to the discussion of the questions 
raised by the sujDposed tendency of biological discovery. 

The Advance, Chicago. 
This Boston Lectureship is altogether unique in the recent history 
of popular exposition of abstruse themes. One has to go back to the 
time of Peter Abelard, of the University of Paris, for a parallel to it. 



//. FOREIGN OPINIONS. 



Rev. R. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury. 

The lectures are remarkably eloquent, vigorous, and powerful, 
and no one could read them without great benefit. They deal with 
very important questions, and are a valuable contribution towards 
solving many of the difficulties which at this time trouble many 
minds. 

Rev. Dr. Angus, the College, Regent's Park. 

These lectures discuss some of the most Adtal questions of the- 
ology, and examine the views or writings of Emerson, Theodore 
Parker, and others. They are creating a great sensation in Boston, 
where they have been delivered, and are wonderful specimens of 
shrewd, clear, and vigorous thinking. They are moreover, largely 
illustrative, and have a fine vein of 'poetry running through them. 
Tlie lectures on the Trinity are capitally written; and, though we 
are not prepared to accept all Mr. Cook's statements, the lectures, 
as a whole, are admirable. A dozen such lectures have not been 
published for many a day. 

Rev. Alexander Raleigh, D.D., of London. 
The lectures are in every way of a high order. They are pro- 
found and yet clear, extremely forcible in some of their parts, yet, 
I think, always fair, and as full of sympathy with what is properly 
and XDurely human as of reverence for what is undoubtedly divine. 

Rev. John Ker, D.D., of Glasgoio. 
My conviction is, that they are sjiecially fitted for the time, and 
likely above all to be useful to thoughtful minds engaged in seeking 
a footing amid the quicksands of doubt. There is a freshness, a 
power, and a felt sincerity, in the way in which they deal with the 
ingrossing questions of our time, and, indeed, of all time, which 
should commend them to earnest spirits which feel that there must 
be a God and a soul, and some way of bringing them together, and 
which yet have got confused amid the negations of the dogmatic 
s^.'epticism of our day. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cook four 
years ago, when he was visiting Europe to make hiniself acquainted 
with different forms of thought; and I could see in him a power and 
resolution which foretold the mark he is now making on public 
opinion. 



BOSTON MONDAY LECTURES. 



I 



Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 
These are very wonderful lectures. We bless God for raising up 
such a champion for Lis truth as Joseph Cook. Few could hunt 
down Theodore Parker, and all that race of misbelievers, as Mr. 
Cook has done. He has strong convictions, the courage of his con- 
victions, and force to support his courage. In reasoning, the infidel 
party have here met their match. We know of no other man one- 
half so well qualified for the peculiar service of exploding the pre- 
tensions of modern science as this great preacher in whom Boston is 
rejoicing. Some men shrink from this spiritual wild-boar hunting; 
but Mr. Cook is as happy in it as he is expert. May his arm be 
strengthened by the Lord of hosts I 

London Quarterly Revieio. 
For searching philosophical analysis, for keen and merciless logic, 
for dogmatic assertion of eternal truth in the august name of science 
nuch as fills the soul to its foundations, for widely diversified and 
most apt illustrations drawn from a wide field of reading and obser- 
vation, for true poetic feeling, for a pathos without any mixture of 
sentimentality, for candor, for moral elevation, and for noble loyalty 
to those great Christian verities which the author affirms and vindi- 
cates, wonderful lectures stand forth alone amidst the contemporary 
literature of the class to which they belong. 

The British Quarterly Review. 
Mr. Cook is a man of wide reading, tenacious memory, acute dis- 
crimination, and great power of popular exposition. Nothing-deters 
him. He plunges in meclias res, however abstruse the speculation, 
and his vigor and fire carry all before them. He has intuitive genius 
for pricking wind-bags, and for reducing over-sanguine and exag- 
gerated hypotheses to their exact value. He has called a halt in 
many an impetuous march of science, and exposed a fundamental 
fallacy in many a triumphant argument. 

The London Spectator. 
Vigorous and suggestive ; interesting from the glimpses they give 
of the present phases of speculation in what is emphatically the 
most thoughtful community in the United States. 

Professor Schoberlein, Gottingen University , Germany. 
I admired the rhetorical power with which, before a large, mixed 
audience, the speaker knew how to handle the difficult topic of 
biology, and to cause the teachings of German philosophers and 
theologians to be respected. 

Professor Ulrici, University of Halle, Germany. 
His object is the foundation of a new and true metaphysics, rest- 
ing on a biological basis; that is, the proof of the truth of philo- 
iSO]-)hical theism, and of the fundamental ideas of Christianity. 
These intentions he carries out with a full, and occasionally with a 
too full, application of his eminent oratorical talent, and with great 
Bagacity, and with thorough knowledge of the leading works in 
pliysiology for the last thirty years. 



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